Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

A song for those who go up to Jerusalem to worship the Lord.

Josiah Promises Again to Obey the Covenant

23 Then the king called together all the elders of Judah and Jerusalem. ² He went up to the Lord’s temple. The people of Judah and Jerusalem went with him. So did the priests and prophets. All of them went, from the least important of them to the most important. The king had all the words of the Book of the Covenant read to them. The book had been found in the Lord’s temple. ³ The king stood next to his pillar. He agreed to the terms of the covenant in front of the Lord. The king promised to serve the Lord and obey his commands, directions and rules. He promised to obey them with all his heart and with all his soul. So he agreed to the terms of the covenant written down in that book. Then all the people committed themselves to the covenant as well.

⁴ Certain things in the Lord’s temple had been made to honor other gods. They were the god named Baal, the female god named Asherah and all the stars in the sky. The king ordered Hilkiah the high priest to remove those things. The king ordered the priests who were next in rank and the men who guarded the doors to help Hilkiah. Josiah took those things that had been in the Lord’s temple and burned them outside Jerusalem. He burned them in the fields in the Kidron Valley. And he took the ashes to Bethel. ⁵ Josiah got rid of the priests who served other gods. The kings of Judah had appointed those priests to burn incense. They burned the incense on the high places of the towns of Judah. And they burned it on the high places around Jerusalem. They burned incense to honor Baal and the sun and moon. They burned it to honor all the stars. ⁶ Josiah removed the Asherah pole from the Lord’s temple. It had been used to worship the female god named Asherah. He took it to the Kidron Valley outside Jerusalem. There he burned it. He ground it into powder. And he scattered it over the graves of the ordinary people. ⁷ He also tore down the rooms where the male temple prostitutes stayed. Those rooms were in the Lord’s temple. Women had made cloth for Asherah in them.

⁸ Josiah brought all the priests from the towns of Judah and destroyed the high places. He destroyed them from Geba all the way to Beersheba. The priests had burned incense on them. Josiah broke down the gate at the entrance of the Gate of Joshua. It was on the left side of Jerusalem’s city gate. Joshua was the city governor. ⁹ The priests of the high places didn’t serve at the Lord’s altar in Jerusalem. In spite of that, they ate with the other priests. All of them ate bread made without yeast.

¹⁰ Josiah destroyed the high place at Topheth in the Valley of Ben Hinnom. He didn’t want anyone to use the high place to sacrifice his son or daughter in the fire to the god named Molek. ¹¹ Josiah removed the statues of horses from the entrance to the Lord’s temple. The kings of Judah had set them apart to honor the sun. The statues were in the courtyard. They were near the room of an official named Nathan-Melek. Josiah burned the chariots that had been set apart to honor the sun.

¹² He pulled down the altars the kings of Judah had set up. They had put them on the palace roof near the upstairs room of Ahaz. Josiah also pulled down the altars Manasseh had built. They were in the two courtyards of the Lord’s temple. Josiah removed the altars from there. He smashed them to pieces. Then he threw the broken pieces into the Kidron Valley. ¹³ The king also destroyed the high places that were east of Jerusalem. They were at the southern end of the Mount of Olives. They were the ones Solomon, the king of Israel, had built. He had built a high place for worshiping Ashtoreth. She was the evil female god of the people of Sidon. Solomon had also built one for worshiping Chemosh. He was the evil god of Moab. And Solomon had built one for worshiping Molek. He was the god of the people of Ammon. The Lord hated that god. ¹⁴ Josiah smashed the sacred stones. He cut down the poles used to worship the female god named Asherah. Then he covered all those places with human bones.

³¹ “The one who comes from above is above everything. The one who is from the earth belongs to the earth and speaks like someone from the earth. The one who comes from heaven is above everything. ³² He is a witness to what he has seen and heard. But no one accepts what he says. ³³ Anyone who has accepted it has said, ‘Yes. God is truthful.’ ³⁴ The one whom God has sent speaks God’s words. That’s because God gives the Holy Spirit without limit. ³⁵ The Father loves the Son and has put everything into his hands. ³⁶ Anyone who believes in the Son has eternal life. Anyone who does not believe in the Son will not have life. God’s anger remains on them.”