² He cried against the altar by the word of Yahweh, and said, altar, altar, thus says Yahweh: Behold, a son shall be born to the house of David, Josiah by name; and on you shall he sacrifice the priests of the high places who burn incense on you, and men's bones shall they burn on you.

¹ Give ear, you heavens, and I will speak; Let the earth hear the words of my mouth.

⁴ and I will turn you about, and put hooks into your jaws, and I will bring you forth, and all your army, horses and horsemen, all of them clothed in full armor, a great company with buckler and shield, all of them handling swords;

⁴ therefore, you mountains of Israel, hear the word of the Lord Yahweh: Thus says the Lord Yahweh to the mountains and to the hills, to the watercourses and to the valleys, to the desolate wastes and to the cities that are forsaken, which are become a prey and derision to the residue of the nations that are round about;

¹ You, son of man, prophesy to the mountains of Israel, and say, You mountains of Israel, hear the word of Yahweh.

²⁹ O earth, earth, earth, hear the word of Yahweh.

¹ Cry aloud, don't spare, lift up your voice like a trumpet, and declare to my people their disobedience, and to the house of Jacob their sins.

⁵ therefore I have declared it to you from of old; before it came to pass I shown it you; lest you should say, My idol has done them, and my engraved image, and my molten image, has commanded them.

⁶ You have heard it; see all this; and you, will you not declare it? I have shown you new things from this time, even hidden things, which you have not known.

⁷ They are created now, and not from of old; and before this day you didn't hear them; lest you should say, Behold, I knew them.

¹⁰ declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times things that are not [yet] done; saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure;

²⁶ who confirms the word of his servant, and performs the counsel of his messengers; who says of Jerusalem, She shall be inhabited; and of the cities of Judah, They shall be built, and I will raise up the waste places of it;

²⁷ who says to the deep, Be dry, and I will dry up your rivers;

²⁸ Who says of Cyrus, [He is] my shepherd, and shall perform all my pleasure, even saying of Jerusalem, She shall be built; and of the temple, Your foundation shall be laid.

⁹ Behold, the former things have happened, and new things do I declare. Before they spring forth I tell you of them.

² Hear, heavens, And listen, earth; for Yahweh has spoken: I have nourished and brought up children, And they have rebelled against me.

⁴ They broke down the altars of the Baals in his presence; and the sun-images that were on high above them he hewed down; and the Asherim, and the engraved images, and the molten images, he broke in pieces, and made dust of them, and strewed it on the graves [of those] who had sacrificed to them.

⁵ He burnt the bones of the priests on their altars, and purged Judah and Jerusalem.

⁶ [So did he] in the cities of Manasseh and Ephraim and Simeon, even to Naphtali, in their ruins round about.

⁷ He broke down the altars, and beat the Asherim and the engraved images into powder, and hewed down all the sun-images throughout all the land of Israel, and returned to Jerusalem.

¹ Josiah was eight years old when he began to reign; and he reigned thirty-one years in Jerusalem.

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, even that altar and the high place he broke down; and he burned the high place and beat it to dust, and burned the Asherah.

¹⁶ As Josiah turned himself, he spied the tombs that were there in the mountain; and he sent, and took the bones out of the tombs, and burned them on the altar, and defiled it, according to the word of Yahweh which the man of God proclaimed, who proclaimed these things.

¹⁷ Then he said, What monument is that which I see? The men of the city told him, It is the tomb of the man of God, who came from Judah, and proclaimed these things that you have done against the altar of Bethel.

¹⁸ He said, Let him be; let no man move his bones. So they let his bones alone, with the bones of the prophet who came out of Samaria.

¹ Josiah was eight years old when he began to reign; and he reigned thirty-one years in Jerusalem: and his mother's name was Jedidah the daughter of Adaiah of Bozkath.

² He did that which was right in the eyes of Yahweh, and walked in all the way of David his father, and didn't turn aside to the right hand or to the left.

³² For the saying which he cried by the word of Yahweh against the altar in Bethel, and against all the houses of the high places which are in the cities of Samaria, shall surely happen.

⁴⁰ He answered them, "I tell you that if these were silent, the stones would cry out."