9. Although the priests of these shrines didn’t go up on the Lord’s altar in Jerusalem, they did eat unleavened bread with their fellow priests.
10. Josiah defiled the Topheth in the Ben-hinnom Valley so no one could burn their child alive in honor of the god Molech.
11. He did away with the horses that Judah’s kings had dedicated to the sun. They were kept at the entrance to the Lord’s temple near a room in the annex that belonged to an official named Nathan-melech. Josiah set fire to the chariots that were dedicated to the sun.
12. The king also tore down the altars that were on the roof of Ahaz’s upper story, which had been made by the Judean kings, and he did the same with the altars that Manasseh had built in the two courtyards of the Lord’s temple. He broke them up there and threw their dust into the Kidron Valley.
13. The king then defiled the shrines facing Jerusalem, south of the Mountain of Destruction. Solomon the king of Israel had built these for Ashtoreth, the monstrous Sidonian god, for Chemosh, the monstrous Moabite god, and for Milcom, the detestable Ammonite god.
14. He smashed the sacred pillars and cut down the sacred poles, filling the places where they had been with human bones.