12 ⁱWho is the man so wise that he can understand this? To whom has the mouth of the Lord spoken, that he may declare it? Why is the land ruined ^jand laid waste like a wilderness, so that no one passes through? 13 And the Lord says: ^k“Because they have forsaken my law that I set before them, and have not obeyed my voice or walked in accord with it, 14 but ^lhave stubbornly followed their own hearts and have gone after the Baals, as their fathers taught them. 15 Therefore thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: ^mBehold, I will feed this people with bitter food, and give them ⁿpoisonous water to drink. 16 ^oI will scatter them among the nations ^pwhom neither they nor their fathers have known, and I will ^qsend the sword after them, until I have consumed them.”

23 Thus says the Lord: ^y“Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, let not the mighty man boast in his might, let not the rich man boast in his riches, 24 but ^zlet him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the Lord who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth. ^aFor in these things I delight, declares the Lord.”

25 “Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when ^bI will punish all those who are circumcised merely in the flesh— 26 ^cEgypt, Judah, Edom, the sons of Ammon, Moab, and ^dall who dwell in the desert who cut the corners of their hair, for all these nations are uncircumcised, and all the house of Israel are ^euncircumcised in heart.”

Idols and the Living God

1 Hear the word that the Lord speaks to you, O house of Israel. 2 Thus says the Lord:

11 Thus shall you say to them: ^w“The gods who did not make the heavens and the earth ^xshall perish from the earth and from under the heavens.”³

3 For in the eighth year of his reign, while he was yet a boy, he began to seek the God of David his father, and in the twelfth year he began to purge Judah and Jerusalem of the high places, the ⁿAsherim, and the carved and the metal images. 4 And they chopped down the altars of the Baals in his presence, and he cut down the ^oincense altars that stood above them. And he broke in pieces the ⁿAsherim and the carved and the metal images, and he made dust of them and ^oscattered it over the graves of those who had sacrificed to them. 5 ^pHe also burned the bones of the priests on their altars and cleansed Judah and Jerusalem.

4 And the king commanded Hilkiah the high priest and the priests ^cof the second order and the keepers of the threshold to bring out of the temple of the Lord all the vessels made for ^dBaal, for ^eAsherah, and for all the host of heaven. ^fHe burned them outside Jerusalem in the fields of the Kidron and carried their ashes to Bethel. 5 And he deposed the priests whom the kings of Judah had ordained to make offerings in the high places at the cities of Judah and around Jerusalem; those also who burned incense to Baal, to the sun and the moon and the constellations ^gand all the host of the heavens. 6 And he brought out ^hthe Asherah from the house of the Lord, outside Jerusalem, to the brook Kidron, ⁱand burned it at the brook Kidron ^jand beat it to dust and cast the dust of it upon the graves ^kof the common people. 7 And he broke down the houses of ^lthe male cult prostitutes who were in the house of the Lord, ^mwhere the women wove hangings for ^hthe Asherah. 8 And he brought all the priests out of the cities of Judah, and defiled the high places where the priests had made offerings, from ⁿGeba 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 one’s left at the gate of the city. 9 ^oHowever, the priests of the high places did not come up to the altar of the Lord in Jerusalem, but they ate unleavened bread among their brothers. 10 And he defiled ^pTopheth, which is ^qin the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, ^rthat no one might burn his son or his daughter as an offering to ^sMolech.¹ 11 And he removed the horses that the kings of Judah had dedicated to the sun, at the entrance to the house of the Lord, by the chamber of Nathan-melech the chamberlain, which was in the precincts.² And he burned the chariots of the sun with fire. 12 And the altars ^ton the roof of the upper chamber of Ahaz, which the kings of Judah had made, and the altars ^uthat Manasseh had made in the two courts of the house of the Lord, he pulled down and broke in pieces³ and cast the dust of them ^vinto the brook Kidron. 13 And the king defiled the high places that were east of Jerusalem, to the south of ^wthe mount of corruption, which Solomon the king of Israel had built for ^xAshtoreth the abomination of the Sidonians, and for ^yChemosh the abomination of Moab, and for ^zMilcom the abomination of the Ammonites. 14 And he broke in pieces the ^apillars and cut down the Asherim and filled their places with the bones of men.

15 Moreover, the altar at Bethel, the high place erected ^bby Jeroboam the son of Nebat, ^cwho made Israel to sin, ^dthat altar with the high place he pulled down and burned,⁴ reducing it to dust. He also burned the Asherah. 16 And as Josiah turned, he saw the tombs there on the mount. And he sent and took the bones out of the tombs and burned them on the altar and defiled it, ^eaccording to the word of the Lord that the man of God proclaimed, who had predicted these things. 17 Then he said, “What is that monument that I see?” And the men of the city told him, ^f“It is the tomb of the man of God who came from Judah and predicted⁵ these things that you have done against the altar at Bethel.” 18 And he said, “Let him be; let no man move his bones.” So they let his bones alone, with the bones ^gof the prophet who came out of Samaria. 19 And Josiah removed all the shrines also of the high places that were ^hin the cities of Samaria, which kings of Israel had made, provoking the Lord to anger. He did to them according to all that he had done at Bethel.

6 And in the ^qcities of Manasseh, Ephraim, and Simeon, and as far as Naphtali, in their ruins¹ all around, 7 he broke down the altars and beat the ⁿAsherim and the images ^rinto powder and cut down all the incense altars throughout all the land of Israel. Then he returned to Jerusalem.