2 Kings 23:1-14

23¹ The king sent, and they gathered to him all the elders of Judah and of Jerusalem. ² The king went up to the house of Yahweh, and all the men of Judah and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem with him, and the priests, and the prophets, and all the people, both small and great: and he read in their ears all the words of the book of the covenant which was found in the house of Yahweh. ³ The king stood by the pillar, and made a covenant before Yahweh, to walk after Yahweh, and to keep his commandments, and his testimonies, and his statutes, with all his heart, and all his soul, to confirm the words of this covenant that were written in this book: and all the people stood to the covenant.

Josiah's Reforms

⁴ The king commanded Hilkiah the high priest, and the priests of the second order, and the keepers of the threshold, to bring forth out of the temple of Yahweh all the vessels that were made for Baal, and for the Asherah, and for all the army of the sky, and he burned them outside of Jerusalem in the fields of the Kidron, and carried the ashes of them to Bethel. ⁵ He put down the idolatrous priests, whom the kings of Judah had ordained to burn incense in the high places in the cities of Judah, and in the places around Jerusalem; those also who burned incense to Baal, to the sun, and to the moon, and to the planets, and to all the army of the sky. ⁶ He brought out the Asherah from the house of Yahweh, outside of Jerusalem, to the brook Kidron, and burned it at the brook Kidron, and beat it to dust, and cast its dust on the graves of the common people. ⁷ He broke down the houses of the sodomites, that were in the house of Yahweh, where the women wove hangings for the Asherah. ⁸ He brought all the priests out of the cities of Judah, and defiled the high places where the priests had burned incense, from Geba to Beersheba; and he broke down the high places of the gates that were at the entrance of the gate of Joshua the governor of the city, which were on a man’s left hand at the gate of the city. ⁹ Nevertheless the priests of the high places didn’t come up to the altar of Yahweh in Jerusalem, but they ate unleavened bread among their brothers. ¹⁰ He defiled Topheth, which is in the valley of the children of Hinnom, that no man might make his son or his daughter to pass through the fire to Molech. ¹¹ He took away the horses that the kings of Judah had given to the sun, at the entrance of the house of Yahweh, by the chamber of Nathan Melech the officer, who was in the court; and he burned the chariots of the sun with fire. ¹² The altars that were on the roof of the upper chamber of Ahaz, which the kings of Judah had made, and the altars which Manasseh had made in the two courts of the house of Yahweh, did the king break down, and beat them down from there, and cast the dust of them into the brook Kidron. ¹³ The high places that were before Jerusalem, which were on the right hand of the mountain of corruption, which Solomon the king of Israel had built for Ashtoreth the abomination of the Sidonians, and for Chemosh the abomination of Moab, and for Milcom the abomination of the children of Ammon, did the king defile. ¹⁴ He broke in pieces the pillars, and cut down the Asherim, and filled their places with the bones of men.