Nahum · Josiah finds the book of the law

Nahum 3 WEB

¹Woe to the bloody city! It is all full of lies and robbery—no end to the prey. ²The noise of the whip, the noise of the rattling of wheels, prancing horses, and bounding chariots, ³the horseman charging, and the flashing sword, the glittering spear, and a multitude of slain, and a great heap of corpses, and there is no end of the bodies. They stumble on their bodies ⁴because of the multitude of the prostitution of the alluring prostitute, the mistress of witchcraft, who sells nations through her prostitution, and families through her witchcraft. ⁵“Behold, I am against you,” says the LORD of Armies, “and I will lift your skirts over your face. I will show the nations your nakedness, and the kingdoms your shame. ⁶I will throw abominable filth on you and make you vile, and will make you a spectacle. ⁷It will happen that all those who look at you will flee from you, and say, ‘Nineveh is laid waste! Who will mourn for her?’ Where will I seek comforters for you?” ⁸Are you better than No-Amon, who was situated among the rivers, who had the waters around her, whose rampart was the sea, and her wall was of the sea? ⁹Cush and Egypt were her boundless strength. Put and Libya were her helpers. ¹⁰Yet was she carried away. She went into captivity. Her young children also were dashed in pieces at the head of all the streets, and they cast lots for her honorable men, and all her great men were bound in chains. ¹¹You also will be drunken. You will be hidden. You also will seek a stronghold because of the enemy. ¹²All your fortresses will be like fig trees with the first-ripe figs. If they are shaken, they fall into the mouth of the eater. ¹³Behold, your troops among you are women. The gates of your land are set wide open to your enemies. The fire has devoured your bars. ¹⁴Draw water for the siege. Strengthen your fortresses. Go into the clay, and tread the mortar. Make the brick kiln strong. ¹⁵There the fire will devour you. The sword will cut you off. It will devour you like the grasshopper. Multiply like grasshoppers. Multiply like the locust. ¹⁶You have increased your merchants more than the stars of the skies. The grasshopper strips and flees away. ¹⁷Your guards are like the locusts, and your officials like the swarms of locusts, which settle on the walls on a cold day, but when the sun appears, they flee away, and their place is not known where they are. ¹⁸Your shepherds slumber, king of Assyria. Your nobles lie down. Your people are scattered on the mountains, and there is no one to gather them. ¹⁹There is no healing your wound, for your injury is fatal. All who hear the report of you clap their hands over you, for who hasn’t felt your endless cruelty?

2 Kings 22:1–23:30 WEB

^22:1Josiah was eight years old when he began to reign, and he reigned thirty-one years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Jedidah the daughter of Adaiah of Bozkath. ²He did that which was right in the LORD’s eyes, and walked in all the ways of David his father, and didn’t turn away to the right hand or to the left. ³In the eighteenth year of King Josiah, the king sent Shaphan, the son of Azaliah the son of Meshullam, the scribe, to the LORD’s house, saying, ⁴“Go up to Hilkiah the high priest, that he may count the money which is brought into the LORD’s house, which the keepers of the threshold have gathered of the people. ⁵Let them deliver it into the hand of the workers who have the oversight of the LORD’s house; and let them give it to the workers who are in the LORD’s house, to repair the damage to the house, ⁶to the carpenters, and to the builders, and to the masons, and for buying timber and cut stone to repair the house. ⁷However, no accounting shall be asked of them for the money delivered into their hand, for they deal faithfully.” ⁸Hilkiah the high priest said to Shaphan the scribe, “I have found the book of the law in the LORD’s house.” Hilkiah delivered the book to Shaphan, and he read it. ⁹Shaphan the scribe came to the king, and brought the king word again, and said, “Your servants have emptied out the money that was found in the house, and have delivered it into the hands of the workmen who have the oversight of the LORD’s house.” ¹⁰Shaphan the scribe told the king, saying, “Hilkiah the priest has delivered a book to me.” Then Shaphan read it before the king. ¹¹When the king had heard the words of the book of the law, he tore his clothes. ¹²The king commanded Hilkiah the priest, Ahikam the son of Shaphan, Achbor the son of Micaiah, Shaphan the scribe, and Asaiah the king’s servant, saying, ¹³“Go inquire of the LORD for me, and for the people, and for all Judah, concerning the words of this book that is found; for great is the LORD’s wrath that is kindled against us, because our fathers have not listened to the words of this book, to do according to all that which is written concerning us.” ¹⁴So Hilkiah the priest, Ahikam, Achbor, Shaphan, and Asaiah went to Huldah the prophetess, the wife of Shallum the son of Tikvah, the son of Harhas, keeper of the wardrobe (now she lived in Jerusalem in the second quarter); and they talked with her. ¹⁵She said to them, “The LORD the God of Israel says, ‘Tell the man who sent you to me, ¹⁶“The LORD says, ‘Behold, I will bring evil on this place and on its inhabitants, even all the words of the book which the king of Judah has read. ¹⁷Because they have forsaken me and have burned incense to other gods, that they might provoke me to anger with all the work of their hands, therefore my wrath shall be kindled against this place, and it will not be quenched.’” ¹⁸But to the king of Judah, who sent you to inquire of the LORD, tell him, “The LORD the God of Israel says, ‘Concerning the words which you have heard, ¹⁹because your heart was tender, and you humbled yourself before the LORD when you heard what I spoke against this place and against its inhabitants, that they should become a desolation and a curse, and have torn your clothes and wept before me, I also have heard you,’ says the LORD. ²⁰‘Therefore behold, I will gather you to your fathers, and you will be gathered to your grave in peace. Your eyes will not see all the evil which I will bring on this place.’”’” So they brought this message back to the king.

^23:1The king sent, and they gathered to him all the elders of Judah and of Jerusalem. ²The king went up to the LORD’s house, and all the men of Judah and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem with him—with the priests, the prophets, and all the people, both small and great; and he read in their hearing all the words of the book of the covenant which was found in the LORD’s house. ³The king stood by the pillar and made a covenant before the LORD to walk after the LORD and to keep his commandments, 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 agreed to the covenant. ⁴The king commanded Hilkiah the high priest, and the priests of the second order, and the keepers of the threshold, to bring out of the LORD’s temple all the vessels that were made for Baal, 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 their ashes to Bethel. ⁵He got rid of 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, to the moon, to the planets, and to all the army of the sky. ⁶He brought out the Asherah from the LORD’s house, 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. ⁷He broke down the houses of the male shrine prostitutes that were in the LORD’s house, where the women wove hangings for the Asherah. ⁸He 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. ⁹Nevertheless the priests of the high places didn’t come up to the LORD’s altar in Jerusalem, but they ate unleavened bread among their brothers. ¹⁰He 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. ¹¹He took away the horses that the kings of Judah had dedicated to the sun, at the entrance of the LORD’s house, by the room of Nathan Melech the officer who was in the court; and he burned the chariots of the sun with fire. ¹²The king broke down the altars that were on the roof of the upper room of Ahaz, which the kings of Judah had made, and the altars which Manasseh had made in the two courts of the LORD’s house, and beat them down from there, and cast their dust into the brook Kidron. ¹³The king defiled 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. ¹⁴He broke in pieces the pillars, cut down the Asherah poles, and filled their places with men’s bones. ¹⁵Moreover the altar that was at Bethel and the high place which Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin, had made, even that altar and the high place he broke down; and he burned the high place and beat it to dust, and burned the Asherah. ¹⁶As Josiah turned himself, he spied the tombs that were there in 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 LORD’s word which the man of God proclaimed, who proclaimed these things. ¹⁷Then he said, “What monument is that which I see?” The men of the city told him, “It is the tomb of the man of God who came from Judah and proclaimed these things that you have done against the altar of Bethel.” ¹⁸He said, “Let him be! Let no one move his bones.” So they let his bones alone, with the bones of the prophet who came out of Samaria. ¹⁹All the houses also of the high places that were in the cities of Samaria, which the kings of Israel had made to provoke the LORD to anger, Josiah took away, and did to them according to all the acts that he had done in Bethel. ²⁰He killed all the priests of the high places that were there, on the altars, and burned men’s bones on them; and he returned to Jerusalem. ²¹The king commanded all the people, saying, “Keep the Passover to the LORD your God, as it is written in this book of the covenant.” ²²Surely there was not kept such a Passover from the days of the judges who judged Israel, nor in all the days of the kings of Israel, nor of the kings of Judah; ²³but in the eighteenth year of King Josiah, this Passover was kept to the LORD in Jerusalem. ²⁴Moreover, Josiah removed those who had familiar spirits, the wizards, and the teraphim, and the idols, and all the abominations that were seen in the land of Judah and in Jerusalem, that he might confirm the words of the law which were written in the book that Hilkiah the priest found in the LORD’s house. ²⁵There was no king like him before him, who turned to the LORD with all his heart, and with all his soul, and with all his might, according to all the law of Moses; and there was none like him who arose after him. ²⁶Notwithstanding, the LORD didn’t turn from the fierceness of his great wrath, with which his anger burned against Judah, because of all the provocation with which Manasseh had provoked him. ²⁷The LORD said, “I will also remove Judah out of my sight, as I have removed Israel; and I will cast off this city which I have chosen, even Jerusalem, and the house of which I said, ‘My name shall be there.’” ²⁸Now the rest of the acts of Josiah, and all that he did, aren’t they written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah? ²⁹In his days Pharaoh Necoh king of Egypt went up against the king of Assyria to the river Euphrates; and King Josiah went against him, but Pharaoh Necoh killed him at Megiddo when he saw him. ³⁰His servants carried him dead in a chariot from Megiddo, brought him to Jerusalem, and buried him in his own tomb. The people of the land took Jehoahaz the son of Josiah, and anointed him, and made him king in his father’s place.