^4 (A)He removed the ^[a]high places and broke the sacred pillars, cut down the ^[b]wooden image and broke in pieces the ^(B)bronze serpent that Moses had made; for until those days the children of Israel burned incense to it, and called it ^[c]Nehushtan.

The Reforms of Hezekiah^(A)

31 Now when all this was finished, all Israel who were present went out to the cities of Judah and ^(B)broke the sacred pillars in pieces, cut down the wooden images, and threw down the ^[a]high places and the altars—from all Judah, Benjamin, Ephraim, and Manasseh—until they had utterly destroyed them all. Then all the children of Israel returned to their own cities, every man to his possession.

⁸ Then the Lord said to Moses, ^(A)“Make a ^(B)fiery serpent, and set it on a pole; and it shall be that everyone who is bitten, when he looks at it, shall live.” ⁹ So ^(C)Moses made a bronze serpent, and put it on a pole; and so it was, if a serpent had bitten anyone, when he looked at the bronze serpent, he lived.

²² But if you say to me, ‘We trust in the Lord our God,’ is it not He ^(A)whose ^[a]high places and whose altars Hezekiah has taken away, and said to Judah and Jerusalem, ‘You shall worship before this altar in Jerusalem’?” ’

³ But ^(A)the ^[a]high places were not taken away; the people still sacrificed and burned incense on the high places.

⁴³ And ^(A)he walked in all the ways of his father Asa. He did not turn aside from them, doing what was right in the eyes of the Lord. Nevertheless ^(B)the high places were not taken away, for the people offered sacrifices and burned incense on the high places.

^12 (A)And he banished the ^[a]perverted persons from the land, and removed all the idols that his fathers had made. ¹³ Also he removed ^(B)Maachah his grandmother from being queen mother, because she had made an obscene image of ^[b]Asherah. And Asa cut down her obscene image and ^(C)burned it by the Brook Kidron. ^14 (D)But the ^[c]high places were not removed. Nevertheless Asa’s ^(E)heart was loyal to the Lord all his days.

^2 (A)Meanwhile the people sacrificed at the high places, because there was no house built for the name of the Lord until those days. ³ And Solomon ^(B)loved the Lord, ^(C)walking in the statutes of his father David, except that he sacrificed and burned incense at the high places.

Gideon Destroys the Altar of Baal

²⁸ And when the men of the city arose early in the morning, there was the altar of Baal, torn down; and the wooden image that was beside it was cut down, and the second bull was being offered on the altar which had been built.