³ For when he was sixteen years old, in the eighth year of his reign, he began to search for the God of his ancestor David; and four years later he began to clean up Judah and Jerusalem, destroying the heathen altars and the shameful idols on the hills. ⁴ He went out personally to watch as the altars of Baal were knocked apart, the obelisks above the altars chopped down, and the shameful idols ground into dust and scattered over the graves of those who had sacrificed to them. ⁵ Then he burned the bones of the heathen priests upon their own altars, feeling that this action would clear the people of Judah and Jerusalem from the guilt of their sin of idol worship.

⁶ Then he went to the cities of Manasseh, Ephraim, and Simeon, even to distant Naphtali, and did the same thing there. ⁷ He broke down the heathen altars, ground to powder the shameful idols, and chopped down the obelisks. He did this everywhere throughout the whole land of Israel before returning to Jerusalem.