Now there was a great famine in Samaria; and they besieged it until a donkey’s head was sold for eighty shekels of silver, and a fourth of a kab of dove’s dung for five shekels of silver.

He commanded them, saying, “This is the thing that you shall do: a third of you who come in [reporting for duty] on the Sabbath shall keep watch over the king’s house

(a third shall also be at the [city] gate Sur, and a third at the gate behind the guards); so you shall keep watch over the palace [from three posts] for defense.

Two units of you, all those who go out [off duty] on the Sabbath, shall also keep watch over the house (temple) of the Lord for [the protection of] the king.

Then King Ahaz cut away the frames of the basin stands [in the temple], and removed the basin from [each of] them; and he took down the [large] Sea from the bronze oxen which were under it, and put it on a plastered stone floor.

Yet the Lord warned Israel and Judah through all His prophets and every seer, saying, “Turn from your evil ways and keep My commandments and My statutes, in accordance with all the Law which I commanded your fathers, and which I sent to you by My servants the prophets.”

Judah did not keep the commandments of the Lord their God either, but walked in the customs which Israel introduced.

The king stood by the pillar and made a covenant before the Lord, to walk after the Lord and to keep His commandments, His testimonies, and His statutes with all his heart and soul, to confirm the words of this covenant that were written in this book. And all the people entered into the covenant.

Then Josiah brought all the [idolatrous] priests from the cities of Judah, and desecrated the high places where the priests had burned incense [to idols], from Geba to Beersheba, [that is, north to south]; and he tore down the high places of the gates which were at the entrance of the gate of Joshua the governor of the city, which were on one’s left at the city gate.

Then the king commanded all the people, saying, “Celebrate the Passover to the Lord your God as it is written in this book of the covenant.”