All the people went and demolished the temple of Baal. They smashed its altars and idols. They killed Mattan the priest of Baal in front of the altars.

God helped him in his campaigns against the Philistines, the Arabs living in Gur Baal, and the Meunites.

(Wicked Athaliah and her sons had broken into God's temple and used all the holy items of the Lord's temple in their worship of the Baals.)

The Lord was with Jehoshaphat because he followed in his ancestor David's footsteps at the beginning of his reign. He did not seek the Baals,

He followed in the footsteps of the kings of Israel; he also made images of the Baals.

He rebuilt the high places that his father Hezekiah had destroyed; he set up altars for the Baals and made Asherah poles. He bowed down to all the stars in the sky and worshiped them.

He ordered the altars of the Baals to be torn down, and broke the incense altars that were above them. He smashed the Asherah poles, idols and images, crushed them up and sprinkled the dust over the tombs of those who had sacrificed to them.