And it came to pass when the king heard the words of the book of the law, that he rent his garments.

"Go, inquire of Yahweh for me and for the people and for all of Judah concerning the words of this scroll [that was] found. For the wrath of Yahweh that is kindled against us [is] great because our ancestors did not listen to the words of this scroll to do according to all that is written concerning us!"

And she said to them, Thus saith Jehovah the God of Israel: Tell the man that sent you to me,

"Thus says Yahweh, 'Look I am bringing evil to this place and upon its inhabitants, [according to] all of the words of that scroll that the king of Judah has read

Because they have forsaken me, and have burned incense unto other gods, that they might provoke me to anger with all the work of their hands, therefore my fury is kindled against this place, and shall not be quenched.

And to the king of Judah who sent all of you to inquire of Yahweh, thus you shall say to him, "Thus says Yahweh the God of Israel, '[Concerning] the words that you have heard,

Because thy heart was tender, and thou didst humble thyself before Jehovah, when thou heardest what I spoke against this place and against the inhabitants thereof, that they should become a desolation and a curse, and didst rend thy garments and weep before me, I also have heard thee, saith Jehovah.

Therefore look, I am gathering you to your ancestors, and you shall be gathered to your tombs in peace. Your eyes will not see all of the disaster that I am bringing onto this place.'" '" Then they {reported the word} to the king.

Then the king went up [to] the temple of Yahweh, and all of the men of Judah and all of the inhabitants of Jerusalem [were] with him, [including] the priests, the prophets, and all of the people from smallest to greatest; and in their {hearing} he read all of the words of the scroll of the covenant that had been found in the temple of Yahweh.

And the king stood on the dais, and made a covenant before Jehovah, to walk after Jehovah, and to keep his commandments and his testimonies and his statutes with all his heart, and with all his soul, to establish the words of this covenant that are written in this book. And all the people stood to the covenant.

And the king commanded Hilkijah the high priest, and the priests of the second order, and the doorkeepers, to bring forth out of the temple of Jehovah all the vessels that had been made for Baal, and for the Asherah, and for all the host of the heavens; and he burned them outside Jerusalem in the fields of Kidron, and carried the ashes of them to Bethel.

And he abolished the idolatrous priests, whom the kings of Judah had ordained to burn incense on the high places in the cities of Judah, and the environs of Jerusalem; and them that burned incense to Baal, to the sun, and to the moon, and to the constellations, and to all the host of heaven.

He broke down the houses of the sodomites, that were in the house of Yahweh, where the women wove hangings for the Asherah.

He brought all the priests out of the cities of Judah, and defiled the high places where the priests had burned incense, from Geba to Beersheba; and he broke down the high places of the gates that were at the entrance of the gate of Joshua the governor of the city, which were on a man's left hand at the gate of the city.

howbeit, the priests of the high places came not up unto the altar of Yahweh, in Jerusalem, save only that they did eat unleavened bread in the midst of their brethren;

And he defiled Topheth, which is in the valley of the sons of Hinnom, that no man might cause his son or his daughter to pass through the fire to Molech.

He kept the horses that the kings of Judah had dedicated to the sun from coming to the temple of Yawheh at the side room of Nathan-Melech the eunuch, which [was] in the court; and the chariots of the sun he burned with fire.

And the king broke down the altars that were on the roof of the upper chamber of Ahaz, which the kings of Judah had made, and the altars that Manasseh had made in the two courts of the house of Jehovah, and he shattered them, removing them from thence, and cast the powder of them into the torrent of Kidron.

And the high places that were before Jerusalem, which were on the right hand of the mount of corruption, which Solomon the king of Israel had built for Ashtoreth the abomination of the Zidonians, and for Chemosh the abomination of the Moabites, and for Milcom the abomination of the children of Ammon, did the king defile.

Moreover, the altar which [was] in Bethel, the high place which Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who had caused Israel to sin, had built, even that altar and the high place, [Josiah] tore down. Then he burned down the high place and crushed [the] pole of Asherah worship to dust and burned it with fire.

When Josiah turned and saw the tombs which [were] there on the hill, he sent and took the bones from the tombs and burned [them] on the altar. [Thus] he defiled them according to the word of Yahweh that the man of God had proclaimed who had proclaimed these things.

Then he said, "What [is] this gravestone that I [am] seeing?" The men of the city said to him, "[This is the] tomb of the man of God who came from Judah and proclaimed these things which you have done against the altar of Bethel."

And he said, Let him alone; let no man move his bones. And they saved his bones, with the bones of the prophet that came out of Samaria.

And all the houses also of the high places that were in the cities of Samaria, which the kings of Israel had made to provoke Jehovah to anger, Josiah removed, and did to them according to all the acts that he had done in Bethel.

And he sacrificed upon the altars all the priests of the high places that were there, and burned men's bones upon them. And he returned to Jerusalem.

For there was not holden such a passover from the days of the judges that judged Israel, nor in all the days of the kings of Israel, nor of the kings of Judah;

Moreover, the mediums and the spiritists, the household gods and the idols, and all of the abominations that were seen in the land of Judah and in Jerusalem, Josiah removed in order to establish the words of the law written on the scroll that Hilkiah the priest had found [in] the temple of Yahweh.

And before him there had been no king like him that turned to Jehovah with all his heart and with all his soul and with all his might, according to all the law of Moses; neither after him arose there his like.

Notwithstanding the LORD turned not from the fierceness of his great wrath, wherewith his anger was kindled against Judah, because of all the provocations that Manasseh had provoked him withal.

Yahweh had said, "Even Judah I will remove from my face, as I have removed Israel; I will reject this city that I have chosen, even Jerusalem and the house [of] which I said, 'My name shall be there'!"

The remainder of the acts of Josiah and all that he did, [are] they not written on the scroll of the events of the days of the kings of Judah?

And he did evil in the sight of Jehovah, according to all that his fathers had done.

And Pharaoh-Nechoh had him bound at Riblah in the land of Hamath, that he might not reign in Jerusalem; and laid a tribute upon the land of a hundred talents of silver and a talent of gold.

And, the silver and the gold, did Jehoiakim give unto Pharaoh, howbeit he assessed the land, that he might give the silver at the bidding of Pharaoh, - every man, according to his assessment, exacted the silver and the gold of the people of the land, that he might give it to Pharaoh-necoh.

He did evil in the eyes of Yahweh according to all that his ancestors had done.

So Yahweh sent against him raiding bands of Chaldeans, raiding bands of Aram, raiding bands of Moab, and raiding bands of the {Ammonites}. He had sent them against Judah to destroy it, according to the word of Yahweh that he had spoken by the hand of his servants the prophets.

Surely, it was {on the command} of Yahweh against Judah to remove them from his sight because of the sins of Manasseh, according to all that he had done.

Also, [for] the blood of the innocent that he had shed--and he filled Jerusalem [with] innocent blood--Yahweh was not willing to forgive.

The remainder of the acts of Jehoiakim and all that he did, [are] they not written on the scroll of the events of the days of the kings of Judah?

And the king of Egypt came not again any more out of his land, for the king of Babylon had taken all that belonged to the king of Egypt, from the torrent of Egypt to the river Euphrates.

He did evil in the eyes of Yahweh according to all that his father had done.

At that time, the servants of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came [to] Jerusalem, and the city came under the siege.

And he brought out thence all the treasures of the house of Jehovah, and the treasures of the king's house, and cut in pieces all the vessels of gold that Solomon king of Israel had made in the temple of Jehovah, as Jehovah had said.

And all the men of might, even seven thousand, and artificers and smiths a thousand, all that were strong and apt for war, even them the king of Babylon brought captive to Babylon.

He did evil in the eyes of Yahweh [just] like all that Jehoiakim had done.

For through the anger of the LORD it came to pass in Jerusalem and Judah, until he had cast them out from his presence, that Zedekiah rebelled against the king of Babylon.

It happened that in the ninth year of his reign, in the tenth month, on the tenth of the month, Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon came, he and his army, against Jerusalem. He encamped against it and built siege works against it all around.

On the ninth day of the [fourth] month the famine was severe in the city, so that there was no bread for the people of the land.

The enemy broke through the city walls, and all the soldiers tried to escape. They left the city during the night. They went through the gate between the two walls that is near the king's garden. (The Babylonians were all around the city.) Then they headed for the Jordan Valley.

In the fifth month, on the seventh of the month, that is, the nineteenth year of King Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, Nebuzaradan, a commander of the imperial guard, a servant of the king of Babylon, came [to] Jerusalem.

And all the army of the Chaldeans that were with the captain of the body-guard broke down the walls of Jerusalem round about.

And Nebuzar-adan the captain of the body-guard carried away captive the rest of the people that were left in the city, and the deserters that had deserted to the king of Babylon, and the rest of the multitude.

The bronze pillars which [were in] the temple of Yahweh, the water carts, and the bronze sea that was in the temple of Yahweh, the Chaldeans broke into pieces and carried their bronze to Babylon.

They also confiscated the pots, shovels, snuffers, spoons, and the rest of the bronze vessels that were used in ministry.

And the censers and the bowls, that which was of gold in gold, and that which was of silver in silver, the captain of the body-guard took away.

The bronze of the items that King Solomon made for the Lord's temple -- including the two pillars, the big bronze basin called "The Sea," the twelve bronze bulls under "The Sea," and the movable stands -- was too heavy to be weighed.

And out of the city he took a chamberlain that was set over the men of war, and five men of them that were in the king's presence, who were found in the city, and the scribe of the captain of the host, who enrolled the people of the land; and sixty men of the people of the land that were found in the city.

And as for the people that remained in the land of Judah, whom Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon had left behind, over them he appointed Gedaliah the son of Ahikam, the son of Shaphan.

When all of the commanders of the troops heard, they and the men, that the king of Babylon had appointed Gedaliah, they came to Gedaliah at Mizpah, [even] Ishmael the son of Nethaniah, Johanan the son of Kareah, Seriah the son of Tanhumeth the Netophathite, Jaazaniah the son of the Maacathite, they and their men.

But it happened in the seventh month that Ishmael the son of Nethaniah the son of Elishama from the offspring of the kingship came, and ten men with him, and they struck down Gedaliah so that he died with the Judeans and with the Chaldeans who were with him at Mizpah.

It happened in the thirty-seventh year of the exile of Jehoiachin king of Judah, in the twelfth month on the twenty-seventh of the month, lifted Evil-Merodach king of Babylon in the year that he became king, the head of Jehoiachin king of Judah from the house of imprisonment.

He spoke {kindly} to him, and he gave him a better seat than the seat of the kings who [were] with him in Babylon.

And unto Eber were born two sons: the name of the one was Peleg, because that in his days the land was divided. And his brother's name was Joktan.

Abram, that is, Abraham.

And these are the kings that reigned in the land of Edom before there reigned a king over the children of Israel: Bela the son of Beor; and the name of his city was Dinhabah.

And Tamar his daughter-in-law bare him Perez and Zerah: so that all the sons of Judah were five.

Carmi's son was Achar, who became Israel's troublemaker by transgressing the LORD's commandment regarding things that were to be destroyed.

The sons also of Hezron, that were born to him; Jerahmeel, and Ram, and Chelubai.

And after that, Hezron had connection with the daughter of Machir, the father of Gilead, whom he took as his wife when he was sixty years old; and she had Segub by him.

And he overcame the Geshurites and the Aramites, and took the towns of Jair from them, and Kenath with the towns that belonged to the same, even three score towns. All these were the sons of Machir the father of Gilead.

After that Hezron was dead in Caleb Ephrathah, then Abijah Hezron's wife bore him Ashhur the father of Tekoa.

And Sheshan had a servant that was an Egyptian named Jarha to whom he gave his daughter to wife, and she bare him Attai.

The sons of Salma: Bethlehem and Netophathi, that were the glory of the house of Joab, and half the Manathites and of the Zorites.

and the families of the scribes who dwelt at Jabez: the Tireathites, the Shimeathites, the Suchathites. These are the Kenites that came of Hammath, the father of the house of Rechab.

Now these were the sons of David, that were born unto him in Hebron: the first-born, Amnon, of Ahinoam the Jezreelitess; the second, Daniel, of Abigail the Carmelitess;

And Jabez was more honorable than his brothers. And his mother called his name Jabez, saying, "Because I bore him in pain."

And Jabez called upon the God of Israel, saying, "Oh that you would surely bless me and enlarge my border. And may your hand be with me, that you would keep me from evil so that it might not harm me!" And God granted what he asked.

The sons of Shelah the son of Judah were, Er the father of Lecah, and Laadah the father of Mareshah, and the families of the house of them that wrought fine linen, of the house of Ashbea,

These were the potters, and those that abode among plantations and enclosures: there they dwelt with the king for his work.

and all their villages that were round about these cities, as far as Baal. These were their habitations and their genealogical register.

They found fertile and rich pasture; the land was very broad, undisturbed and peaceful. Indeed some Hamites had been living there prior to that.

And these written by name came in the days of Hezekiah king of Judah, and smote their tents and the habitations that were found there, and destroyed them utterly unto this day, and dwelt in their stead; for there was pasture there for their flocks.

Some of them that is, 500 Simeonite men went to Mount Seir. Under the leadership of Ishi's sons Pelatiah, Neariah, Rephaiah, and Uzziel,

and they smote the rest of the Amalekites that had escaped; and they dwelt there unto this day.

The sons of Reuben the firstborn of Israel (for he was the firstborn, but when he defiled the couch of his father, his birthright was given to the sons of Joseph, the son of Israel, so that he was not enrolled in the genealogy as the firstborn,

Even though Judah became prominent among his relatives that is, the Commander-in-chief will be his descendant nevertheless the right of the firstborn went to Joseph.)

In the east they settled as far as the entrance to the desert that stretches to the Euphrates River, for their cattle had increased in numbers in the land of Gilead.

In the days of Saul they made war with the Hagrites, who fell by their hand, so that they occupied their tents throughout all the land east of Gilead.

The sons of Reuben, and the Gadites, and the half-tribe of Manasseh, of valiant men, men able to bear buckler and sword, and to shoot with bow, and skillful in war, were forty-four thousand seven hundred and sixty, that were able to go forth to war.

and they were helped against them, and the Hagarites were delivered into their hand, and all that were with them; for they cried to God in the battle, and he was intreated of them, because they put their trust in him.

for there fell many dead because the war was of God. And they dwelt there in their steads until the time that they were carried away.

The sons of half the tribe of Manasseh settled in the land from Bashan to Baal-hermon (that is, Senir or Mount Hermon); they were numerous.

So the God of Israel stirred up King Pul of Assyria (that is, King Tiglath-pileser of Assyria), and he carried away the Reubenites, Gadites, and half-tribe of Manasseh and took them to Halah, Habor, Hara, and the river of Gozan, where they remain to this very day.

and Johanan begot Azariah (he is it that exercised the priesthood in the house that Solomon built in Jerusalem);

And these are they whom David set over the service of song in the house of Jehovah after that the ark was in rest.

And these are they that attended, and their sons: Of the sons of the Kohathites: Heman the singer, the son of Joel, the son of Samuel,

But Aaron and his sons made offerings on the altar of burnt offering and on the altar of incense for all the work of the most holy place, and to make atonement for Israel, according to all that Moses the servant of God had commanded.

And out of the tribe of Benjamin, Geba and her suburbs, Alemath with her suburbs, Anathoth with her suburbs: so that all their cities among their kindreds were thirteen.

And to the children of Kohath that remained were given by lot out of the families of the tribe of Ephraim and of the tribe of Dan and of the half tribe, half Manasseh, ten cities.

And they gave by lot out of the tribe of Judah, out of the tribe of Simeon, and out of the tribe of Benjamin these cities that are mentioned by name.