*Josiah awas eight years old when he began to reign, and he reigned thirty and one years in Jerusalem. And his mother’s name was Jedidah, the daughter of Adaiah of bBoscath. 2 And he did that which was right in the sight of the Lord, and walked in all the way of David his father, and cturned not aside to the right hand or to the left. 3 *dAnd it came to pass in the eighteenth year of king Josiah, that the king sent Shaphan the son of Azaliah, the son of Meshullam, the scribe, to the house of the Lord, saying, 4 Go up to Hilkiah ethe high priest, that he may sum the silver which is fbrought into the house of the Lord, which the keepers of the †door have gathered of the people: 5 And let them gdeliver it into the hand of the doers of the work, that have the oversight of the house of the Lord: and let them give it to the doers of the work which is in the house of the Lord, to repair the breaches of the house, 6 gUnto carpenters, and builders, and masons, and to buy timber and hewn stone to repair the house. 7 Howbeit hthere was no reckoning made with them of the money that was delivered into their hand, because they dealt faithfully.

8 And Hilkiah the high priest said unto Shaphan the scribe, iI have found the book of the law in the house of the Lord. And Hilkiah gave the book to Shaphan, and he read it. 9 And Shaphan the scribe came to the king, and brought the king word again, and said, Thy servants have †gathered the money that was found in the house, and have delivered it into the hand of them that do the work, that have the oversight of the house of the Lord. 10 And Shaphan the scribe shewed the king, saying, Hilkiah the priest hath delivered me a book. And Shaphan read it before the king. 11 And it came to pass, when the king had heard the words of the book of the law, that jhe rent his clothes. 12 And the king commanded Hilkiah the priest, and kAhikam the son of Shaphan, and ||Achbor the son of ||Michaiah, and Shaphan the scribe, and Asahiah a servant of the king’s, saying, 13 Go ye, inquire of the Lord for me, and for the people, and for all Judah, concerning the words of this book that is found: for great is lthe wrath of the Lord that is kindled against us, because our fathers have not hearkened unto the words of this book, to do according unto all that which is written concerning us. 14 So Hilkiah the priest, and Ahikam, and Achbor, and Shaphan, and Asahiah, went unto Huldah the prophetess, the wife of Shallum the son of ||Tikvah, the son of ||Harhas, keeper of the †wardrobe; (now she dwelt in Jerusalem ||in the college;) and they communed with her. 15 And she said unto them, Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, Tell the man that sent you to me, 16 Thus saith the Lord, Behold, I will bring evil upon this place, and upon the inhabitants thereof, even all the words of the book which the king of Judah hath read: 17 mBecause they have forsaken me, and have burned incense unto other gods, that they might nprovoke me to anger with all the works of their hands; therefore omy wrath shall be kindled against this place, and shall not be quenched. 18 But to the king of Judah which sent you to inquire of the Lord, thus shall ye say to him, Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, As touching the words which thou hast heard; 19 Because thine pheart was tender, and thou hast qhumbled thyself before the Lord, when thou heardest what I spake against this place, and against the inhabitants thereof, that they should become ra desolation and sa curse, and jhast rent thy clothes, and wept before me; I also have heard thee, saith the Lord. 20 Behold therefore, I will gather thee unto thy fathers, and thou tshalt be gathered into thy grave in peace; and thine eyes shall not see all the evil which I will bring upon this place. And they brought the king word again.

23 And athe king sent, and they gathered unto him all the elders of Judah and of Jerusalem. 2 And the king went up into the house of the Lord, and all the men of Judah and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem with him, and the priests, and the prophets, and all the people, †both small and great: and bhe read in their ears all the words of the book of the covenant cwhich was found in the house of the Lord. 3 And the king stood by da pillar, and made a covenant before the Lord, eto walk after the Lord, and to keep his commandments and his testimonies and his statutes with all their heart and all their soul, to perform the words of this covenant that were written in this book. And all the people stood to the covenant. 4 And the king commanded Hilkiah fthe high priest, and the priests gof the second order, and the keepers of the door, to bring forth out of the temple of the Lord all the vessels that were made for hBaal, and for the grove, and for all the host of heaven: and he burned them without Jerusalem in the fields of iKidron, and carried the ashes of them unto Beth-el. 5 And he †put down the †idolatrous priests, whom the kings of Judah had ordained to burn incense in the high places in the cities of Judah, and in the places round about Jerusalem; them also that burned incense unto Baal, to the sun, and to the moon, and to the ||planets, and to jall the host of heaven. 6 And he brought out the kgrove from the house of the Lord, without Jerusalem, unto the ibrook Kidron, and burned it at the brook Kidron, and lstamped it small to powder, and cast the powder thereof mupon the graves of the children of the people. 7 And he brake down the houses of nthe sodomites, that were by the house of the Lord, owhere the women wove †hangings for the grove. 8 And he brought all the priests out of the cities of Judah, and defiled the high places where the priests had burned incense, from pGeba to qBeer-sheba, and brake down the high places of the gates that were in the entering in of the gate of Joshua the governor of the city, which were on a man’s left hand at the gate of the city. 9 rNevertheless the priests of the high places came not up to the altar of the Lord in Jerusalem, but they did eat of the unleavened bread among their brethren. 10 And he defiled sTopheth, which is in tthe valley of the children of Hinnom, that no man umight make his son or his daughter to pass through the fire to wMolech. 11 And he xtook away the horses that the kings of Judah had given to the sun, at the entering in of the house of the Lord, by the ychamber of Nathan-melech the ||chamberlain, which was in the zsuburbs, and burned the chariots of the sun with fire. 12 And the altars that were aon the top of the bupper chamber of Ahaz, which the kings of Judah had made, and the altars which cManasseh had made in the two courts of the house of the Lord, did the king beat down, and ||brake them down from thence, and cast the dust of them into dthe brook Kidron. 13 And the high places that were before Jerusalem, which were on the right hand of ||the mount of corruption, which Solomon the king of Israel had builded for eAshtoreth the abomination of the Zidonians, and for fChemosh the abomination of the Moabites, and for eMilcom the abomination of the children of Ammon, did the king defile. 14 And he brake in pieces the †images, and cut down the groves, and filled their places with the bones of men.

15 Moreover the altar that was at Beth-el, and the high place gwhich Jeroboam the son of Nebat, hwho made Israel to sin, had made, both that altar and the high place he brake down, and burned the high place, and stamped it small to powder, and burned the grove. 16 And as Josiah turned himself, he spied the sepulchres that were there in the mount, and sent, and took the bones out of the sepulchres, and burned them upon the altar, and polluted it, iaccording to the word of the Lord which the man of God proclaimed, who proclaimed these words. 17 Then he said, What ktitle is that that I see? And the men of the city told him, It is lthe sepulchre of the man of God, which came from Judah, and proclaimed these things that thou hast done against the altar of Beth-el. 18 And he said, Let him alone; let no man move his bones. So they let his bones †alone, with the bones mof the prophet that came out of Samaria. 19 And all the houses also of the high places that were nin the cities of Samaria, which the kings of Israel had made to provoke the Lord to anger, Josiah took away, and did to them according to all the acts that he had done in Beth-el. 20 And he ||oslew all the priests of the high places that were there upon the altars, and pburned men’s bones upon them, and returned to Jerusalem.

21 And the king commanded all the people, saying, qKeep the passover unto the Lord your God, ras it is written in sthe book of this covenant. 22 tSurely there was not holden such a passover from the days of the judges that judged Israel, nor in all the days of the kings of Israel, nor of the kings of Judah; 23 But in the eighteenth year of king Josiah, wherein this passover was holden to the Lord in Jerusalem. 24 *Moreover the uworkers with familiar spirits, and the wizards, and the ||images, and xthe idols, and all the abominations that were spied in the land of Judah and in Jerusalem, did Josiah put away, that he might perform ythe words of the law which were written in the book that Hilkiah the priest found in the house of the Lord. 25 zAnd like unto him was there no king before him, that turned to the Lord with all his heart, and with all his soul, and awith all his might, according to all the law of Moses; neither after him arose there any like him. 26 Notwithstanding the Lord turned not from the fierceness of his great wrath, wherewith his anger was kindled against Judah, bbecause of all the †provocations that Manasseh had provoked him withal.