Quickly after Jehu had finished offering the burnt offering, he said to the guards and to the captains, “Go in and kill the worshipers of Baal! Don’t let any person come out of the temple alive!”
Then Elijah said, “Get the prophets of Baal! [207] Don’t let any of them escape!” So the people captured all the prophets. Then Elijah led them down to Kishon Creek. At that place he killed all the prophets.
Then all the people went to the temple of {the false god} Baal. The people destroyed the statue of Baal, and they destroyed his altars. [141] They broke them into many, many pieces. The people also killed Baal’s priest, Mattan, in front of the altars.
Josiah killed all the priests of the high places that were in Samaria. He killed the priests on those altars. He burned men’s bones on the altars. {In this way he ruined those places of worship.} Then he went back to Jerusalem.
“If any person makes a sacrifice [143] to a false god, then that person should be destroyed. The Lord God is the only one you should make sacrifices to.
Then Moses said to them, “I will tell you what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: ‘Every man must get his sword and go from one end of the camp to the other. {You must punish these people, even if} each man must kill his brother, friends, and neighbors.’”
Then the king told the guards at his side, “Go and kill the priests of the Lord. Do this because they are on David’s side also. They knew David was running away, but they didn’t tell me!”