Deuteronomy 12:11

Hebrew Bible

10 When you do go across the Jordan River and settle in the land he is granting you as an inheritance and you find relief from all the enemies who surround you, you will live in safety. 11 Then you must come to the place the Lord your God chooses for his name to reside, bringing everything I am commanding you—your burnt offerings, sacrifices, tithes, the personal offerings you have prepared, and all your choice votive offerings that you devote to him. 12 You shall rejoice in the presence of the Lord your God, along with your sons, daughters, male and female servants, and the Levites in your villages (since they have no allotment or inheritance with you).

2 Kings 23:19

Hebrew Bible

18 The king said, “Leave it alone! No one must touch his bones.” So they left his bones undisturbed, as well as the bones of the Israelite prophet buried beside him. 19 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 Lord. He did to them what he had done to the high place in Bethel. 20 He sacrificed all the priests of the high places on the altars located there, and burned human bones on them. Then he returned to Jerusalem.

 Notes and References

"... The most important factor from his point of view seems to be centralization of the religion. The first law of Deuteronomy's law code is that there is to be only one place for sacrifice, one place 'where Yahweh sets his name.' The writer therefore regards Jeroboam's establishment of the golden calves at Beth-El and Dan as a tremendous sin. He rates every king of Israel as having 'done bad in the eyes of Yahweh,' because none of them removed the calves. As for the kings of Judah, he rates several of them as having 'done bad in the eyes of Yahweh' for various offenses—which always include building or retaining the 'high places' for worship outside of Jerusalem. Even when he rates a king of Judah as having 'done what is right in the eyes of Yahweh,' he still says, 'except that he did not do away With the high places.' Of all the kings of Israel and Judah, only two do not receive this criticism: Hezekiah and Josiah, the two kings who are said to have destroyed the high places. The one consistent criterion, applied to every king, is centralization of religion. But after Josiah, this criterion disappears. The last two chapters of 2 Kings do not even mention high places. According to the books of the prophets Jeremiah and Ezekiel, the high places were reestablished in this period. Yet the Deuteronomistic writer does not mention it, neither to praise any of the last four kings for rejecting high places, nor to attack them for rebuilding them ..."

Friedman, Richard Elliott Who Wrote the Bible? (pp. 114-115) Harper San Francisco, 1997

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