Quotes About Reform

When Jehu came to Samaria, he struck down everyone belonging to Ahab who remained there, until he had destroyed them, according to the word that the LORD had spoken to Elijah.

Then Jehu brought all the people together and said, “Ahab served Baal a little, but Jehu will serve him a lot.

They brought out the sacred pillar of the temple of Baal and burned it.

Thus Jehu eradicated Baal from Israel,

So all the people of the land went to the temple of Baal and tore it down. They smashed the altars and idols to pieces, and they killed Mattan the priest of Baal in front of the altars. And Jehoiada the priest posted guards for the house of the LORD.

Nevertheless, the high places were not removed; the people continued sacrificing and burning incense there.

Nevertheless, the high places were not taken away, and the people continued sacrificing and burning incense on the high places.

He also took the bronze altar that stood before the LORD from the front of the temple (between the new altar and the house of the LORD) and he put it on the north side of the new altar.

He removed the high places, shattered the sacred pillars, and cut down the Asherah poles. He also demolished the bronze snake called Nehushtan that Moses had made, for up to that time the Israelites had burned incense to it.

Then the king commanded Hilkiah the high priest, the priests second in rank, and the doorkeepers to remove from the temple of the LORD all the articles made for Baal, Asherah, and all the host of heaven. And he burned them outside Jerusalem in the fields of Kidron and carried their ashes to Bethel.

Josiah also did away with the idolatrous priests ordained by the kings of Judah to burn incense on the high places of the cities of Judah and in the places all around Jerusalem—those who had burned incense to Baal, to the sun and moon, to the constellations, and to all the host of heaven.

He also tore down the quarters of the male shrine prostitutes that were in the house of the LORD, where the women had woven tapestries for Asherah.

And he removed from the entrance to the house of the LORD the horses that the kings of Judah had dedicated to the sun. They were in the court near the chamber of an official named Nathan-melech. And Josiah burned up the chariots of the sun.

The king also desecrated the high places east of Jerusalem, to the south of the Mount of Corruption, which King Solomon of Israel had built for Ashtoreth the abomination of the Sidonians, for Chemosh the abomination of the Moabites, and for Milcom the abomination of the Ammonites.

On the altars he slaughtered all the priests of the high places, and he burned human bones on them. Then he returned to Jerusalem.

Furthermore, Josiah removed the mediums and spiritists, the household gods and idols, and all the abominations that were seen in the land of Judah and in Jerusalem. He did this to carry out the words of the law written in the book that Hilkiah the priest had found in the house of the LORD.

He removed the foreign altars and high places, shattered the sacred pillars, and chopped down the Asherah poles.

He also removed the high places and incense altars from all the cities of Judah, and under him the kingdom was at peace.

King Asa also removed his grandmother Maacah from her position as queen mother because she had made a detestable Asherah pole. Asa chopped down the pole, crushed it, and burned it in the Kidron Valley.

Then in the seventh year, Jehoiada strengthened himself and made a covenant with the commanders of hundreds—with Azariah son of Jeroham, Ishmael son of Jehohanan, Azariah son of Obed, Maaseiah son of Adaiah, and Elishaphat son of Zichri.

In the first month of the first year of his reign, Hezekiah opened and repaired the doors of the house of the LORD.

In the eighth year of his reign, while he was still young, Josiah began to seek the God of his father David, and in the twelfth year he began to cleanse Judah and Jerusalem of the high places, the Asherah poles, the carved idols, and the cast images.

Then in his presence the altars of the Baals were torn down, and he cut to pieces the incense altars that were above them. He shattered the Asherah poles, the carved idols, and the cast images, crushed them to dust, and scattered them over the graves of those who had sacrificed to them.

Josiah did the same in the cities of Manasseh, Ephraim, and Simeon, as far as Naphtali, and in the ruins around them.