⁵ He also burned the bones of the priests on their altars and cleansed Judah and Jerusalem.^(A)

² And he cried out against the altar by the word of the Lord and said, “O altar, altar, thus says the Lord: A son shall be born to the house of David, Josiah by name, and he shall sacrifice on you the priests of the high places who offer incense on you, and human bones shall be burned on you.”^(A)

²⁴ Mortal, say to it: You are a land that is not cleansed, not rained upon in the day of indignation.

8 At that time, says the Lord, the bones of the kings of Judah, the bones of its officials, the bones of the priests, the bones of the prophets, and the bones of the inhabitants of Jerusalem shall be brought out of their tombs,^{(A) 2} and they shall be spread before the sun and the moon and all the host of heaven, which they have loved and served, which they have followed, and which they have inquired of and worshiped, and they shall not be gathered or buried; they shall be like dung on the surface of the ground.^(B)

¹⁰ Yet for all this her false sister Judah did not return to me with her whole heart but only in pretense, says the Lord.^(A)

⁷ he broke down the altars, beat the sacred poles^[a] and the images into powder, and demolished all the incense altars throughout all the land of Israel. Then he returned to Jerusalem.^(A)

²⁰ He slaughtered on the altars all the priests of the high places who were there and burned human bones on them. Then he returned to Jerusalem.^(A)

¹⁶ As Josiah turned, he saw the tombs there on the mount, and he sent and took the bones out of the tombs and burned them on the altar and defiled it, according to the word of the Lord that the man of God proclaimed when Jeroboam stood by the altar at the festival; he turned and looked up at the tomb of the man of God who had proclaimed these things.^[a](A)

³³ You shall not pollute the land in which you live, for blood pollutes the land, and no expiation can be made for the land for the blood that is shed in it, except by the blood of the one who shed it.^(A)