23:3a So the king stood by the pillar

The king stood ⌊in his place⌋ by the pillar.

-or-

Then King ⌊Josiah⌋ ⌊went and⌋ stood next to one of the ⌊temple⌋ columns/pillars

23:3b and made a covenant before the LORD

⌊As he stood⌋ before Yahweh, he promised to be faithful to the ⌊holy⌋ covenant.

-or-

in the presence of Yahweh. He said, “I will keep/follow the solemn agreement ⌊that Yahweh has made with Israel⌋ .

23:3c to follow the LORD and to keep His commandments, decrees, and statutes

⌊He promised⌋ to follow Yahweh and to obey his instructions, commands, and laws

-or-

I will obey Yahweh and do all that he ordered ⌊his people⌋ to do.

23:3d with all his heart and all his soul,

with all his heart and soul/life.

-or-

I devote/commit myself to doing this sincerely and faithfully.

23:3e and to carry out the words of this covenant that were written in this book.

⌊He promised⌋ that he would practice/keep everything written in this scroll/book of the covenant.

-or-

In this way I will obey/fulfill the words/terms of ⌊God’s⌋ solemn agreement that is in this book.”

23:3f And all the people entered into the covenant.

Then all the people promised to keep/obey the covenant.

-or-

After that all the ⌊other⌋ people ⌊present/there⌋ joined/committed themselves to the solemn agreement.

© 2020 by SIL International®

Made available under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License (CC BY-SA) creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0.

All Scripture quotations in this publication, unless otherwise indicated, are from The Holy Bible, Berean Standard Bible.

BSB is produced in cooperation with Bible Hub, Discovery Bible, OpenBible.com, and the Berean Bible Translation Committee.