Bible Reading for April 29

2 Kings Chapter 23

1 And the king sent, and they gathered unto him all the elders of Judah
and of Jerusalem.

2 And the king went up into the house of the LORD, 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 the LORD.

3 And the king stood by a pillar, and made a covenant before the LORD,
to walk after the LORD, and to keep his commandments and his testimonies
and his statutes with all their heart and all their soul, to perform the
words of this covenant that were written in this book. And all the
people stood to the covenant.

4 And the king commanded Hilkiah the high priest, and the priests of the
second order, and the keepers of the door, to bring forth out of the
temple of the LORD all the vessels that were made for Baal, and for the
grove, and for all the host of heaven: and he burned them without
Jerusalem in the fields of Kidron, and carried the ashes of them unto
Bethel.

5 And 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 round about Jerusalem; them also that burned incense unto
Baal, to the sun, and to the moon, and to the planets, and to all the
host of heaven.

6 And he brought out the grove from the house of the LORD, without
Jerusalem, unto the brook Kidron, and burned it at the brook Kidron, and
stamped it small to powder, and cast the powder thereof upon the graves
of the children of the people.

7 And he brake down the houses of the sodomites, that were by the house
of the LORD, where the women wove hangings for the grove.

8 And 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 brake down the high places of the gates that were in the
entering in 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 came not up to the altar
of the LORD in Jerusalem, but they did eat of the unleavened bread among
their brethren.

10 And 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 And he took away the horses that the kings of Judah had given to the
sun, at the entering in of the house of the LORD, by the chamber of
Nathanmelech the chamberlain, which was in the suburbs, and burned the
chariots of the sun with fire.

12 And the altars that were on the top 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 the LORD, did the king beat down,
and brake them down from thence, and cast the dust of them into the
brook Kidron.

13 And the high places that were before Jerusalem, which were on the
right hand of the mount of corruption, which Solomon the king of Israel
had builded for Ashtoreth the abomination of the Zidonians, and for
Chemosh the abomination of the Moabites, and for Milcom the abomination
of the children of Ammon, did the king defile.

14 And he brake in pieces the images, and cut down the groves, and
filled their places with the bones of men.

15 Moreover the altar that was at Bethel, and the high place which
Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin, had made, both that
altar and the high place he brake down, and burned the high place, and
stamped it small to powder, and burned the grove.

16 And as Josiah turned himself, he spied the sepulchres that were there
in the mount, and sent, and took the bones out of the sepulchres, and
burned them upon the altar, and polluted it, according to the word of
the LORD which the man of God proclaimed, who proclaimed these words.

17 Then he said, What title is that that I see? And the men of the city
told him, It is the sepulchre of the man of God, which came from Judah,
and proclaimed these things that thou hast done against the altar of Bethel.

18 And he said, Let him alone; let no man move his bones. So they let
his bones alone, with the bones of the prophet that came out of Samaria.

19 And all 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.

20 And he slew all the priests of the high places that were there upon
the altars, and burned men's bones upon them, and returned to Jerusalem.

21 And the king commanded all the people, saying, Keep the passover unto
the LORD your God, as it is written in the book of this covenant.

22 Surely there was not holden such a passover from the days of the
judges that judged Israel, nor in all the days of the kings of Israel,
nor of the kings of Judah;

23 But in the eighteenth year of king Josiah, wherein this passover was
holden to the LORD in Jerusalem.

24 Moreover the workers with familiar spirits, and the wizards, and the
images, and the idols, and all the abominations that were spied in the
land of Judah and in Jerusalem, did Josiah put away, that he might
perform the words of the law which were written in the book that Hilkiah
the priest found in the house of the LORD.

25 And like unto him was there no king before him, that 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; neither after him arose there any
like him.

26 Notwithstanding the LORD turned not from the fierceness of his great
wrath, wherewith his anger was kindled against Judah, because of all the
provocations that Manasseh had provoked him withal.

27 And the LORD said, I will remove Judah also out of my sight, as I
have removed Israel, and will cast off this city Jerusalem which I have
chosen, and the house of which I said, My name shall be there.

28 Now the rest of the acts of Josiah, and all that he did, are they not
written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah?

29 In his days Pharaohnechoh king of Egypt went up against the king of
Assyria to the river Euphrates: and king Josiah went against him; and he
slew him at Megiddo, when he had seen him.

30 And his servants carried him in a chariot dead from Megiddo, and
brought him to Jerusalem, and buried him in his own sepulchre. And the
people of the land took Jehoahaz the son of Josiah, and anointed him,
and made him king in his father's stead.

31 Jehoahaz was twenty and three years old when he began to reign; and
he reigned three months in Jerusalem. And his mother's name was Hamutal,
the daughter of Jeremiah of Libnah.

32 And he did that which was evil in the sight of the LORD, according to
all that his fathers had done.

33 And Pharaohnechoh put him in bands at Riblah in the land of Hamath,
that he might not reign in Jerusalem; and put the land to a tribute of
an hundred talents of silver, and a talent of gold.

34 And Pharaohnechoh made Eliakim the son of Josiah king in the room of
Josiah his father, and turned his name to Jehoiakim, and took Jehoahaz
away: and he came to Egypt, and died there.

35 And Jehoiakim gave the silver and the gold to Pharaoh; but he taxed
the land to give the money according to the commandment of Pharaoh: he
exacted the silver and the gold of the people of the land, of every one
according to his taxation, to give it unto Pharaohnechoh.

36 Jehoiakim was twenty and five years old when he began to reign; and
he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem. And his mother's name was Zebudah,
the daughter of Pedaiah of Rumah.

37 And he did that which was evil in the sight of the LORD, according to
all that his fathers had done.

2 Kings Chapter 24

1 In his days Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came up, and Jehoiakim
became his servant three years: then he turned and rebelled against him.

2 And the LORD sent against him bands of the Chaldees, and bands of the
Syrians, and bands of the Moabites, and bands of the children of Ammon,
and sent them against Judah to destroy it, according to the word of the
LORD, which he spake by his servants the prophets.

3 Surely at the commandment of the LORD came this upon Judah, to remove
them out of his sight, for the sins of Manasseh, according to all that
he did;

4 And also for the innocent blood that he shed: for he filled Jerusalem
with innocent blood; which the LORD would not pardon.

5 Now the rest of the acts of Jehoiakim, and all that he did, are they
not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah?

6 So Jehoiakim slept with his fathers: and Jehoiachin his son reigned in
his stead.

7 And the king of Egypt came not again any more out of his land: for the
king of Babylon had taken from the river of Egypt unto the river
Euphrates all that pertained to the king of Egypt.

8 Jehoiachin was eighteen years old when he began to reign, and he
reigned in Jerusalem three months. And his mother's name was Nehushta,
the daughter of Elnathan of Jerusalem.