But they did not repudiate<n id="1" /> the sinful ways of the family<n id="2" /> of Jeroboam, who encouraged Israel to sin; they continued in those sins.<n id="3" /> There was even an Asherah pole<n id="4" /> standing in Samaria.

He followed in the footsteps of<n id="1" /> the kings of Israel. He passed his son through the fire,<n id="2" /> a horrible sin practiced by the nations<n id="3" /> whom the <sc>Lordsc> drove out from before the Israelites.

Because he killed innocent people and stained Jerusalem with their blood, the <sc>Lordsc> was unwilling to forgive them.<n id="1" />p>

<t /><p class="bodytext">Now Elisha advised the woman whose son he had brought back to life, &#8220;You and your family should go and live somewhere else for a while,<n id="1" /> for the <sc>Lordsc> has decreed that a famine will overtake the land for seven years.&#8221;

<p class="bodytext">Furthermore Manasseh killed so many innocent people, he stained Jerusalem with their blood from end to end,<n id="1" /> in addition to encouraging Judah to sin by doing evil in the sight of the <sc>Lordsc>.<n id="2" />p>

&#8216;You displayed a sensitive spirit<n id="1" /> and humbled yourself before the <sc>Lordsc> when you heard how I intended to make this place and its residents into an appalling example of an accursed people.<n id="2" /> You tore your clothes and wept before me, and I have heard you,&#8217; says the <sc>Lordsc>.

<p class="bodytext">He also tore down the altar in Bethel<n id="1" /> at the high place made by Jeroboam son of Nebat, who encouraged Israel to sin.<n id="2" /> He burned all the combustible items at that high place and crushed them to dust; including the Asherah pole.<n id="3" />

<p class="bodytext">Josiah also removed all the shrines on the high places in the cities of Samaria. The kings of Israel had made them and angered the <sc>Lordsc>.<n id="1" /> He did to them what he had done to the high place in Bethel.<n id="2" />

<p class="bodytext">Josiah also got rid of<n id="1" /> the ritual pits used to conjure up spirits,<n id="2" /> the magicians, personal idols, disgusting images,<n id="3" /> and all the detestable idols that had appeared in the land of Judah and in Jerusalem. In this way he carried out the terms of the law<n id="4" /> recorded on the scroll that Hilkiah the priest had discovered in the <sc>Lordsc>&#8217;s temple.