1. And Josiah was eight years old when he began to reign, and he was king for thirty-one years in Jerusalem.
2. And he did what was correct in the eyes of the Lord, and he walked in the ways of David his father and did not turn either to the right or left.
3. And in the eighth year of his reign, while he was still a young boy, he began to seek out the God of David his father; and in the twelfth year he began to cleanse Judah and Jerusalem from high places, Asherah poles, idols, and carved and cast images.
4. So they tore down the altars for the Baals, and he cut down the incense altars that were above them and smashed the Asherah poles and carved and cast images. And he crushed them to dustandscattered them before the graves of those who sacrificed to them.
5. Then he burned the bones of the priests on their altars and so cleansed Judah and Jerusalem.
6. In the cities of Manasseh, Ephraim, and Simeon, and as far as Naphtali, in their ruins all around,
7. he broke down the altars, beat Asherah poles and the images into powder, and cut down all the incense altars throughout all the land of Israel. Then he returned to Jerusalem.
8. In the eighteenth year of his reign, when he had purged the land and the house, he sent Shaphan the son of Azaliah, Maaseiah the governor of the city, and Joah the son of Joahaz, the recorder, to repair the house of the Lord his God.
9. When they came to Hilkiah the high priest, they delivered the money that was brought into the house of God, which the Levites, the keepers of the door, had collected from the hand of Manasseh and Ephraim, and from all the remnant of Israel, and from all Judah and Benjamin, and from the inhabitants of Jerusalem.
10. And they gave it to those appointed to do the work in the house of the Lord. And those who were doing the work on the house gave it to repair and restore the house.
11. And they gave it to the craftsmen and builders to acquire quarried stones and timber for joists and beams for the buildings that the kings of Judah had ruined.
12. So the men did the work faithfully. Their overseers were Jahath and Obadiah the Levites, of the sons of Merari, and Zechariah and Meshullam, of the sons of the Kohathites, as supervisors. And other Levites, all skillful with musical instruments,
13. were over those laborers and supervised all those doing the work in every type of service, and other Levites were scribes, officials, and gatekeepers.