The whole land wept with a loud voice as all the people passed by. Now the king was crossing over the brook Kidron, and all of the people were crossing over on the road to the wilderness.
But if you say to me, ‘We trust in the Lord our God,’ is it not He, whose high places and altars Hezekiah has removed, saying to Judah and to Jerusalem, ‘You shall worship before this altar in Jerusalem’?
King Asa even removed his mother Maacah from being queen mother because she had made a detestable image for Asherah. Asa cut down her image, crushed it, and burned it in the Kidron Valley.
And Ahaz gathered the vessels from the house of God, and he cut up the vessels. Then he shut the doors of the house of the Lord, and he made altars in every corner of Jerusalem.
Then the priests came into the inner part of the house of the Lord to cleanse it, and they removed everything that they found that was unclean in the main hall of the temple of the Lord to the court. And the Levites took those things and brought them out to the Kidron Valley.
Has not Hezekiah himself taken down this god’s high places and altars by ordering Judah and Jerusalem, ‘You all will bow down at one altar and on it burn sacrifices’?
And in the eighth year of his reign, while he was still a young boy, he began to seek out the God of David his father; and in the twelfth year he began to cleanse Judah and Jerusalem from high places, Asherah poles, idols, and carved and cast images.
So they tore down the altars for the Baals, and he cut down the incense altars that were above them and smashed the Asherah poles and carved and cast images. And he crushed them to dust and scattered them before the graves of those who sacrificed to them.
he broke down the altars, beat Asherah poles and the images into powder, and cut down all the incense altars throughout all the land of Israel. Then he returned to Jerusalem.
But if you say to me, ‘We trust in the Lord our God,’ is it not He whose high places and whose altars Hezekiah has taken away, and said to Judah and to Jerusalem, ‘You shall worship before this altar’?