13. The king also desecrated the shrines facing Jerusalem—to the south of the Mount of Destruction—which King Solomon of Israel had built for Ashtoreth the abomination of the Zidonians, for Chemosh the abomination of Moab, and for Milcom the abomination of the Ammonites.
14. He smashed the pillars and cut down the Asherah poles and filled their places with human bones.
15. Moreover, the altar that was at Bethel and the shrine built by Jeroboam son of Nebat—who caused Israel to sin—that altar and the shrine he demolished, too. He burned the shrine and ground it to dust, and burned up the Asherah.
16. Then, as Josiah looked around, he saw the burial caves there on the mountain, so he sent and took the bones out of the tombs and burned them on the altar, thus desecrating it—as was the word of Adonai which the man of God had proclaimed, who foretold it.
17. Then he asked, “What is this monument I see?” So the men of the town told him, “It is the tomb of the man of God, who came from Judah and proclaimed these things that you have just done to the altar of Bethel.”
18. “Let him rest,” he said. “Let no one disturb his bones.” So they left his bones undisturbed along with the bones of the prophet who came from Samaria.
19. Josiah also removed all the shrines of the high places that the kings of Israel had built in the towns of Samaria to provoke. He did to them just as he had done in Bethel.
20. All the priests of the high places there he slaughtered on the altars, and burned human bones on them. Then he returned to Jerusalem.
21. Then the king commanded all the people saying, “Celebrate the Passover to Adonai your God, as it is written in this Book of the Covenant.”
22. For no Passover like this had been celebrated from the days of the judges who judged Israel or in all the days of the kings of Israel and the kings of Judah.