Josiah became king of Judah when he was eight years old and reigned in Jerusalem for thirty-one years. He did what was right in God’s sight and walked in the way of his ancestor David, without turning aside to the right or left. In the eighteenth year of his reign, Josiah began to attend to the work of the temple.
He sent Shaphan the secretary to Hilkiah the high priest. Money brought into the temple was to be counted and given to the overseers of the work, so that its damaged places could be repaired. The funds were given to carpenters, builders, and masons and used to buy timber and dressed stone for the repairs.
While this work was being done, Hilkiah the high priest found the book of the law in the temple. He gave the book to Shaphan, who read it. Shaphan first reported to the king that the money collected for the temple had been handed to the workers. Then he told the king that Hilkiah had given him a book, and he read it before the king.
When the king heard the words of the book of the law, he tore his clothes. He ordered Hilkiah, Shaphan, and several officials to inquire of God for himself, the people, and all Judah. Their ancestors had not obeyed the words written in the book or done all that it commanded, he said, and God’s anger against them was great.
The men sent by the king went to the prophet Huldah, who lived in the Second Quarter of Jerusalem. Huldah was the wife of Shallum, keeper of the wardrobe. She told them that God would bring disaster upon the place and its inhabitants, according to all the words of the book the king had read. The people had abandoned God and burned incense to other gods, provoking God’s anger.
Huldah also gave them a message for Josiah. When he heard the words of the book, his heart had been tender; he had humbled himself before God, torn his clothes, and wept. God had heard him. Josiah would be gathered to his ancestors and laid in his grave in peace, and his eyes would not see the disaster that would come upon the place.
The king gathered all the elders of Judah and Jerusalem. He went up to the temple with priests, prophets, and all the people, from the least to the greatest. He read in their hearing all the words of the covenant book found in the temple. Standing by the pillar, he made a covenant to follow God with all his heart and soul, to keep the commandments, statutes, and decrees. All the people joined in the covenant.
Josiah ordered the vessels made for Baal, Asherah, and the host of heaven removed from the temple. He burned them in the Kidron Valley outside Jerusalem and carried their ashes to Bethel. He removed the priests who had burned incense at the high places in Judah’s towns and around Jerusalem, and he stopped the burning of incense to idols.
The king defiled Topheth, where people had made sons and daughters pass through fire for Molech, so that no one could use it again. He removed the horses that Judah’s kings had dedicated to the sun at the entrance of the temple and burned the chariots of the sun. He tore down and defiled high places and altars, including the altar and high place at Bethel. There he burned the bones of the priests on the altar.
Josiah removed mediums, wizards, household gods, idols, and every abomination found in Judah and Jerusalem. He acted to fulfill the words of the law written in the book Hilkiah had found in the temple. No king before Josiah had turned to God with all his heart, soul, and strength according to the law of Moses, and no king after him was like him.
The king commanded all the people to keep the Passover for God as written in the covenant book. This Passover was kept in Jerusalem in the eighteenth year of King Josiah. No Passover like it had been kept since the days of the judges who ruled Israel, nor throughout the days of Israel’s kings and the kings of Judah.
Even so, God did not turn from the great wrath kindled against Judah because of all that Manasseh had done to provoke anger. God said that Judah too would be removed from his sight, as Israel had been. Jerusalem, the city he had chosen, and the temple where he had said his name would dwell would also be rejected.
After this, King Neco of Egypt went up toward the Euphrates to meet the king of Assyria. King Josiah went out to meet him, and when Neco saw him at Megiddo, he killed him. Josiah’s servants carried his body in a chariot from Megiddo to Jerusalem and buried him in his own tomb. The people of the land then took Josiah’s son Jehoahaz, anointed him, and made him king in his father’s place.