Old Testament Toilet found - but you can't use it

And Jehu wrote and sent letters to Samaria, to the rulers of Jezreel, to the elders, ... Now the king's sons, seventy persons, were with the great men of the city, who .... Then Jehu sent throughout all Israel; and all the worshipers of Baal came, so that ... To say he made it a refuse dump is literally that he made it a public toilet. 2 Kings 9:6-8

Israeli archaeologists have discovered a stone toilet while excavating a Jewish shrine at an ancient city gate, evidence that a biblical king tried to stamp out Baal worship there.

King Hezekiah deliberately defiled the eighth century BC shrine at the door to the ancient city of Lachish, as part of a campaign to centralise Jewish faith in Jerusalem, the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) said.

"A toilet was installed in the Baal temple as the ultimate desecration of that place," the IAA said in a statement.

"A stone fashioned in the shape of a chair with a hole in its centre was found in the corner of the room."

The authority said it was the first time an archaeological find confirmed the practice of installing a toilet to discourage worship.

This practice is referred to in the biblical Book of 2 Kings 10:27 in an account of King Jehu's fight against worshippers of the pagan deity Baal.

"And they demolished the pillar of Baal, and demolished the house of Baal, and made it a latrine to this day," the statement quoted the Bible as saying.

But laboratory tests suggest the stone toilet at the Lachish gate was never used, the IAA said.

This showed its placement was "symbolic, after which the Baal Temple was sealed until the site was destroyed".

Lachish, about 40 kilometres south-west of Jerusalem, was conquered by the invading Assyrians under King Sennacherib in 701 BC.

The city gate was first located "decades ago", the IAA said, but was only fully exposed in early 2016.

"The excavation revealed destruction layers in the wake of the defeat, including arrowheads and sling stones, indicative of the hand-to-hand combat that occurred in the city's gatehouse."

God used Jehu to rid the land of false prophets. Today you would be in trouble for killing false teachers and prophets with a sword like Jehu did, but the Bible can be iur sword for confronting false beliefs.