^7 (A)You shall not have other gods beside me. ⁸ You shall not make for yourself an idol or a likeness of anything in the heavens above or on the earth below or in the waters beneath the earth; ^9 [a]you shall not bow down before them or serve them. For I, the Lord, your God, am a jealous^[b] God, bringing punishment for their parents’ wickedness on the children of those who hate me, down to the third and fourth generation, ¹⁰ but showing love down to the thousandth generation of those who love me and keep my commandments.

²⁴ An altar of earth make for me, and sacrifice upon it your burnt offerings and communion sacrifices, your sheep and your oxen.^(A) In every place where I cause my name to be invoked^[a] I will come to you and bless you. ²⁵ But if you make an altar of stone for me,^(B) do not build it of cut stone, for by putting a chisel to it you profane it. ²⁶ You shall not ascend to my altar by steps, lest your nakedness be exposed.

³ He did what was right in the Lord’s sight, just as David his father had done. ⁴ It was he who removed the high places, shattered the pillars, cut down the asherah,^[a] and smashed the bronze serpent Moses had made, because up to that time the Israelites were burning incense to it. (It was called Nehushtan.)^{(A) 5} He put his trust in the Lord, the God of Israel; and neither before nor after him was there anyone like him among all the kings of Judah. ⁶ Hezekiah held fast to the Lord and never turned away from following him, but observed the commandments the Lord had given Moses.

²² Or do you people say to me, “It is in the Lord our God we trust!”? Is it not he whose high places and altars Hezekiah has removed, commanding Judah and Jerusalem, “Worship before this altar in Jerusalem”?’

Josiah’s Religious Reform. ⁴ Then the king commanded the high priest Hilkiah, his assistant priests, and the doorkeepers to remove from the temple of the Lord all the objects that had been made for Baal, Asherah, and the whole host of heaven. These he burned outside Jerusalem on the slopes of the Kidron; their ashes were carried to Bethel.^{(A) 5} He also put an end to the idolatrous priests whom the kings of Judah had appointed to burn incense on the high places in the cities of Judah and in the vicinity of Jerusalem, as well as those who burned incense to Baal, to the sun, moon, and signs of the zodiac, and to the whole host of heaven.^{(B) 6} From the house of the Lord he also removed the Asherah to the Wadi Kidron, outside Jerusalem; he burned it and beat it to dust, in the Wadi Kidron, and scattered its dust over the graveyard of the people of the land.^{[a](C) 7} He tore down the apartments of the cult prostitutes in the house of the Lord, where the women wove garments for the Asherah.^{(D) 8} He brought in all the priests from the cities of Judah, and then defiled, from Geba to Beer-sheba, the high places where they had offered incense. He also tore down the high places of the gates, which were at the entrance of the Gate of Joshua, governor of the city, north of the city gate. ⁹ (The priests of the high places could not function at the altar of the Lord in Jerusalem; but they, along with their relatives, ate the unleavened bread.)