And he brake down the houses of the sodomites, that were by the house of the LORD, where the women wove hangings for the grove.
King Josiah was one of ancient Judah's most reform-minded rulers, reigning around 640–609 BC. When he discovered a long-forgotten book of God's law, he was horrified to realize how far the nation had drifted. This verse captures one moment in his sweeping cleanup of Jerusalem — including the temple itself, which had been infiltrated by pagan practices. Asherah was a Canaanite fertility goddess, and her worship had seeped into the very house of God. "Male shrine prostitutes" refers to individuals who participated in pagan religious rituals. Josiah didn't just announce reform — he identified and dismantled the specific structures that had enabled corruption.
God, give me the courage to look honestly at what has taken up space in my heart that doesn't belong there. I don't want to get used to what I should be removing. Help me want what's clean. Amen.
The thing that should unsettle us about this verse isn't just that idol worship happened — it's where it happened. In the temple. The Lord's house. The women weren't weaving for a foreign goddess in some hidden back alley; they were doing it right there, in the most sacred space in the nation. Corruption had become so normalized that nobody thought to remove it. It had furniture. It had a room. Josiah didn't send a strongly worded memo. He tore things down. And there's a kind of spiritual honesty that requires that same specificity from us — not vague resolutions to "do better" but an actual audit. What has slowly been normalized in your inner world that doesn't belong there? What has quietly moved into the sacred space and started rearranging the furniture? The uncomfortable question this verse raises isn't whether you're a good person. It's whether you've looked closely enough to know.
How did pagan worship end up inside the Jerusalem temple in the first place — what does that tell you about how spiritual drift usually happens?
What habits, thought patterns, or influences have slowly crept into your life that you've mostly stopped questioning?
Josiah's reforms were radical and concrete — he tore structures down. Is there something in your life that needs to be removed rather than just reduced?
How does the spiritual state of one person — a king, a parent, a close friend — ripple outward to affect the people around them? Where have you seen that play out?
If you did an honest audit of your inner life this week, what's one thing you'd want to address — and what's one concrete step you could actually take?
And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another ; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.
Romans 1:27
And there were also sodomites in the land: and they did according to all the abominations of the nations which the LORD cast out before the children of Israel.
1 Kings 14:24
For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature:
Romans 1:26
And he tore down the houses of the [male] cult prostitutes, which were at the house (temple) of the LORD, where the women were weaving [tent] hangings for the Asherah [shrines].
AMP
And he broke down the houses of the male cult prostitutes who were in the house of the LORD, where the women wove hangings for the Asherah.
ESV
He also broke down the houses of the [male] cult prostitutes which [were] in the house of the LORD, where the women were weaving hangings for the Asherah.
NASB
He also tore down the quarters of the male shrine prostitutes, which were in the temple of the Lord and where women did weaving for Asherah.
NIV
Then he tore down the ritual booths of the perverted persons that were in the house of the LORD, where the women wove hangings for the wooden image.
NKJV
He also tore down the living quarters of the male and female shrine prostitutes that were inside the Temple of the LORD, where the women wove coverings for the Asherah pole.
NLT
He tore out the rooms of the male sacred prostitutes that had been set up in The Temple of God; women also used these rooms for weavings for Asherah.
MSG