Evening Prayer

⁴Then 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.

⁵Josiah 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.

⁶He brought the Asherah pole from the house of the LORD to the Kidron Valley outside Jerusalem, and there he burned it, ground it to powder, and threw its dust on the graves of the common people. ⁷He 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.

⁸Then Josiah brought all the priests from the cities of Judah and desecrated the high places, from Geba to Beersheba, where the priests had burned incense. He tore down the high places of the gates at the entrance of the gate of Joshua the governor of the city, which was to the left of the city gate. ⁹Although the priests of the high places did not come up to the altar of the LORD in Jerusalem, they ate unleavened bread with their fellow priests.

¹⁰He also desecrated Topheth in the Valley of Ben-hinnom so that no one could sacrifice his son or daughter in the fire to Molech. ¹¹And 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.

¹²He pulled down the altars that the kings of Judah had set up on the roof near the upper chamber of Ahaz, and the altars that Manasseh had set up in the two courtyards of the house of the LORD. The king pulverized them there and threw their dust into the Kidron Valley.

¹³The 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. ¹⁴He smashed the sacred pillars to pieces, cut down the Asherah poles, and covered the sites with human bones.

¹⁵He even pulled down the altar at Bethel, the high place set up by Jeroboam son of Nebat, who had caused Israel to sin. Then he burned the high place, ground it to powder, and burned the Asherah pole. ¹⁶And as Josiah turned, he saw the tombs there on the hillside, and he sent someone to take the bones out of the tombs, and he burned them on the altar to defile it, according to the word of the LORD proclaimed by the man of God who had foretold these things.

¹⁷Then the king asked, “What is this monument I see?”

And the men of the city replied, “It is the tomb of the man of God who came from Judah and proclaimed these things that you have done to the altar of Bethel.”

¹⁸“Let him rest,” said Josiah. “Do not let anyone disturb his bones.”

So they left his bones undisturbed, along with those of the prophet who had come from Samaria.

¹⁹Just as Josiah had done at Bethel, so also in the cities of Samaria he removed all the shrines of the high places set up by the kings of Israel who had provoked the LORD to anger. ²⁰On the altars he slaughtered all the priests of the high places, and he burned human bones on them. Then he returned to Jerusalem.

²¹The king commanded all the people, “Keep the Passover of the LORD your God, as it is written in this Book of the Covenant.”

²²No such Passover had been observed from the days of the judges who had governed Israel through all the days of the kings of Israel and Judah. ²³But in the eighteenth year of Josiah’s reign, this Passover was observed to the LORD in Jerusalem.

²⁴Furthermore, 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.

²⁵Neither before nor after Josiah was there any king like him, who turned to the LORD with all his heart and with all his soul and with all his strength, according to all the Law of Moses.

¹Five days later the high priest Ananias came down with some elders and a lawyer named Tertullus, who presented to the governor their case against Paul.

²When Paul had been called in, Tertullus opened the prosecution: “Because of you, we have enjoyed a lasting peace, and your foresight has brought improvements to this nation. ³In every way and everywhere, most excellent Felix, we acknowledge this with all gratitude. ⁴But in order not to delay you any further, I beg your indulgence to hear us briefly.

⁵We have found this man to be a pestilence, stirring up dissension among the Jews all over the world. He is a ringleader of the sect of the Nazarenes, ⁶and he even tried to desecrate the temple; so we seized him. ⁸By examining him yourself, you will be able to learn the truth about all our charges against him.”

⁹The Jews concurred, asserting that these charges were true.

¹⁰When the governor motioned for Paul to speak, he began his response: “Knowing that you have been a judge over this nation for many years, I gladly make my defense. ¹¹You can verify for yourself that no more than twelve days ago I went up to Jerusalem to worship. ¹²Yet my accusers did not find me debating with anyone in the temple or riling up a crowd in the synagogues or in the city. ¹³Nor can they prove to you any of their charges against me.

¹⁴I do confess to you, however, that I worship the God of our fathers according to the Way, which they call a sect. I believe everything that is laid down by the Law and written in the Prophets, ¹⁵and I have the same hope in God that they themselves cherish, that there will be a resurrection of both the righteous and the wicked. ¹⁶In this hope, I strive always to maintain a clear conscience before God and man.

¹⁷After several years, then, I returned to Jerusalem to bring alms to my people and to present offerings. ¹⁸At the time they found me in the temple, I was ceremonially clean and was not inciting a crowd or an uproar. But there are some Jews from the province of Asia ¹⁹who ought to appear before you and bring charges, if they have anything against me. ²⁰Otherwise, let these men state for themselves any crime they found in me when I stood before the Sanhedrin, ²¹unless it was this one thing I called out as I stood in their presence: ‘It is concerning the resurrection of the dead that I am on trial before you today.’”

²²Then Felix, who was well informed about the Way, adjourned the hearing and said, “When Lysias the commander comes, I will decide your case.” ²³He ordered the centurion to keep Paul under guard, but to allow him some freedom and permit his friends to minister to his needs.