When king Josiah had read this book before the assembly of the elders and the people in the house of Jehovah (p. 213), he vowed that he "would turn after Jehovah, and keep his ordinances and commands, and fulfil with all his heart and soul the words of the covenant written in the book." "And all the people entered into the covenant." The king went vigorously to work to destroy the altars, statues, and symbols of foreign rites which remained in Jerusalem, in the neighbourhood, and the whole country, from the time of Manasses and a yet earlier date. The image of Astarte (p. 209) was removed from the temple, and burnt on the brook Kidron; the altars on the roof of the king's palace, which Ahaz had made, as well as those which Manasses had set up in the court of the temple, were torn down; the place for offering burnt-offerings to Moloch in the valley of Ben Hinnom; the altars of Milcom and Camus, which since Solomon's time had existed on the high places near Jerusalem (II. 195), were purified, "that no one should any more make his son or his daughter to pass through the fire." All the vessels of the worship of Baal and the star-gods were removed, and the houses of the male worshippers thrown down. When the king proceeded to put an end to the ancient worship of Jehovah on the heights, he found greater resistance than in the removal of these foreign rites and their priests. He commanded all the priests of the cities of Judah to come to Jerusalem, and purified the high places "from Geba to Beersheba," even the places at Bethel which Jeroboam II. had set up, against which Amos and Hosea had declaimed.[468] The priests who did not obey, and continued to sacrifice at the old places of sacrifice, and on the high places, he caused to be slain as sacrifices at the altars which they refused to desert. Then the Passover was celebrated according to the regulations of the law, "as never before under the kings of Israel and Judah," and tradition proudly declares of Josiah "that before him there arose no king like unto him, nor after him."[469] FOOTNOTES: [417] Above, p. 157, 162 ff. [418] 2 Kings xxi. 3-16; xxiii. 4-14, 26; xxiv. 3. Jer. ii. 30; vii. 31; viii. 2, 19; xv. 4; xix. 4, 5. [419] 2 Kings xxii. 3-20; Deut. xxxi. 9-13. The less weight will be given to the somewhat circumstantial account of the discovery given in Chronicles as compared with the Books of Kings because the details are only a development of what Hilkiah says to Zaphan. [420] Deut. iv. 32. [421] Deut. x. 14, 17. [422] Deut. x. 18. [423] Deut. v. 9. [424] Deut. iv. 15. [425] Deut. xxxi. 27. [426] Deut. xxviii. 12. [427] Deut. xxviii. 15; cf. iv. 27. [428] Deut. xxx. 1-10. [429] Deut. iv. 32-34. [430] Deut. vii. 7, 8. [431] Deut. x. 14, 15; iv. 37. [432] Deut. xxx. 11-14. [433] Deut. x. 16. [434] Deut. iv. 29. [435] Deut. xix. 9; x. 12. [436] Deut. xiii. 3; xi. 1; cf. vi. 4-6. [437] Deut. xii.; xvi. 16. [438] Deut. xv. 19, 20; iv. 22-29; xxvi. 12-15.