2 Kings 23:1-8

New King James Version

Josiah Restores True Worship^(A)

23 Now ^(B)the king sent them to gather all the elders of Judah and Jerusalem to him. ² The king went up to the house of the Lord with all the men of Judah, and with him all the inhabitants of Jerusalem—the priests and the prophets and all the people, both small and great. And he ^(C)read in their hearing all the words of the Book of the Covenant ^(D)which had been found in the house of the Lord.

³ Then the king ^(E)stood by a pillar and made a ^(F)covenant before the Lord, to follow the Lord and to keep His commandments and His testimonies and His statutes, with all his heart and all his soul, to perform the words of this covenant that were written in this book. And all the people took a stand for the covenant. ⁴ And the king commanded Hilkiah the high priest, the ^(G)priests of the second order, and the doorkeepers, to bring ^(H)out of the temple of the Lord all the articles that were made for Baal, for ^[a]Asherah, and for all ^[b]the host of heaven; and he burned them outside Jerusalem in the fields of Kidron, and carried their ashes to Bethel. ⁵ Then he removed the idolatrous priests whom the kings of Judah had ordained to burn incense on the high places in the cities of Judah and in the places all around Jerusalem, and those who burned incense to Baal, to the sun, to the moon, to the ^[c]constellations, and to ^(I)all the host of heaven. ⁶ And he brought out the ^(J)wooden^[d] image from the house of the Lord, to the Brook Kidron outside Jerusalem, burned it at the Brook Kidron and ground it to ^(K)ashes, and threw its ashes on ^(L)the graves of the common people. ⁷ Then he tore down the ritual ^[e]booths ^(M)of the ^[f]perverted persons that were in the house of the Lord, ^(N)where the ^(O)women wove hangings for the wooden image. ⁸ And he brought all the priests from the cities of Judah, and defiled the high places where the priests had burned incense, from ^(P)Geba to Beersheba; also he broke down the high places at the gates which were at the entrance of the Gate of Joshua the governor of the city, which were to the left of the city gate.