1. Josiah was eight years old when he began to reign; and he reigned thirty-one years in Jerusalem.
2. And he did what was right in the sight of Jehovah, and walked in the ways of David his father, and turned not aside to the right hand nor to the left.
3. And in the eighth year of his reign, while he was yet young, he began to seek after the God of David his father; and in the twelfth year he began to purge Judah and Jerusalem from the high places, and the Asherahs, and the graven images, and the molten images.
4. And they broke down the altars of the Baals in his presence; and the sun-pillars that were on high above them he cut down; and the Asherahs and the graven images and the molten images he broke in pieces, and made dust of themand strewed it upon the graves of those that had sacrificed to them;
5. and he burned the bones of the priests upon their altars, and purged Judah and Jerusalem.
6. And so did he in the cities of Manasseh and Ephraim and Simeon, even to Naphtali, in their ruins round about;
7. and he broke down the altars, and beat the Asherahs and the graven images into powder, and cut down all the sun-pillars throughout the land of Israel, and returned to Jerusalem.
8. And in the eighteenth year of his reign, when he purged the land and the house, he sent Shaphan the son of Azaliah, and Maaseiah the governor of the city, and Joah the son of Joahaz the chronicler, to repair the house of Jehovah his God
9. And they came to Hilkijah the high priest, and they delivered to them the money that had been brought into the house of God which the Levites that kept the doors had gathered of the hand of Manasseh and Ephraim, and of all the remnant of Israel, and of all Judah and Benjamin, and of the inhabitants of Jerusalem.
10. And they gave it into the hand of them that did the work, that had the oversight of the house of Jehovah; and they gave it to the workmen who wrought in the house of Jehovah to reinstate and repair the house:
11. they gave it to the carpenters and the builders, to buy hewn stone, and timber for the joists, and to floor the houses that the kings of Judah had destroyed.
12. And the men did the work faithfully. And over them were appointed Jahath and Obadiah, Levites, of the children of Merari, and Zechariah and Meshullam, of the children of the Kohathites, for the oversight; and all these Levites were skilled in instruments of music.
13. They were also over the bearers of burdens, and were overseers of all that worked in any manner of service. And of the Levites were the scribes, and officers, and doorkeepers.