⁴ Then your altars shall be desolate, your incense altars shall be broken, and ^(A)I will cast down your slain men before your idols.

⁵ He also removed the ^[a]high places and the incense altars from all the cities of Judah, and the kingdom was quiet under him.

¹³ Then you shall know that I am the Lord, when their slain are among their idols all around their altars, ^(A)on every high hill, ^(B)on all the mountaintops, ^(C)under every green tree, and under every thick oak, wherever they offered sweet incense to all their idols.

⁵ And I will lay the corpses of the children of Israel before their idols, and I will scatter your bones all around your altars. ⁶ In all your dwelling places the cities shall be laid waste, and the ^[a]high places shall be desolate, so that your altars may be laid waste and made desolate, your idols may be broken and made to cease, your incense altars may be cut down, and your works may be abolished.

¹³ He shall also break the sacred pillars of ^[a]Beth Shemesh that are in the land of Egypt; and the houses of the gods of the Egyptians he shall burn with fire.” ’ ”

Jeremiah Mourns for His People

8 “At that time,” says the Lord, “they shall bring out the bones of the kings of Judah, and the bones of its princes, and the bones of the priests, and the bones of the prophets, and the bones of the inhabitants of Jerusalem, out of their graves. ² They shall spread them before the sun and the moon and all the host of heaven, which they have loved and which they have served and after which they have walked, which they have sought and ^(A)which they have worshiped. They shall not be gathered ^(B)nor buried; they shall be like refuse on the face of the earth.

^4 (A)They broke down the altars of the Baals in his presence, and the incense altars which were above them he cut down; and the wooden images, the carved images, and the molded images he broke in pieces, and made dust of them ^(B)and scattered it on the graves of those who had sacrificed to them. ⁵ He also ^(C)burned the bones of the priests on their ^(D)altars, and cleansed Judah and Jerusalem.

¹⁶ As Josiah turned, he saw the tombs that were there on the mountain. And he sent and took the bones out of the tombs and burned them on the altar, and defiled it according to the ^(A)word of the Lord which the man of God proclaimed, who proclaimed these words. ¹⁷ Then he said, “What gravestone is this that I see?”

So the men of the city told him, “It is ^(B)the tomb of the man of God who came from Judah and proclaimed these things which you have done against the altar of Bethel.”

¹⁸ And he said, “Let him alone; let no one move his bones.” So they let his bones alone, with the bones of ^(C)the prophet who came from Samaria.

¹⁹ Now Josiah also took away all the ^[a]shrines of the ^[b]high places that were ^(D)in the cities of Samaria, which the kings of Israel had made to provoke ^[c]the Lord to anger; and he did to them according to all the deeds he had done in Bethel. ^20 (E)He ^(F)executed all the priests of the ^[d]high places who were there, on the altars, and ^(G)burned men’s bones on them; and he returned to Jerusalem.