1. Josiah was eight years old when he became king, and he reigned thirty-one years in Jerusalem.
2. He did what was right in the Lord’s sight, walking in the way of David his father, not turning right or left.
3. In the eighth year of his reign, while he was still a youth, he began to seek after the God of David his father. Then in his twelfth year he began to purify Judah and Jerusalem of the high places, the asherahs, and the carved and molten images.
4. In his presence, the altars of the Baals were torn down; the incense stands erected above them he broke down; the asherahs and the carved and molten images he smashed and beat into dust, which he scattered over the tombs of those who had sacrificed to them;
5. and the bones of the priests he burned upon their altars. Thus he purified Judah and Jerusalem.
6. He did likewise in the cities of Manasseh, Ephraim, Simeon, and in the ruined villages of the surrounding country as far as Naphtali;
7. he tore down the altars and asherahs, and the carved images he beat into dust, and broke down the incense stands throughout the land of Israel. Then he returned to Jerusalem.
8. In the eighteenth year of his reign, in order to purify the land and the temple, he sent Shaphan, son of Azaliah, Maaseiah, the ruler of the city, and Joah, son of Joahaz, the chancellor, to restore the house of the Lord, his God.
9. They came to Hilkiah the high priest and turned over the money brought to the house of God which the Levites, the guardians of the threshold, had collected from Manasseh, Ephraim, and all the remnant of Israel, as well as from all of Judah, Benjamin, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem.
10. They turned it over to the master workers in the house of the Lord, and these in turn used it to pay the workers in the Lord’s house who were restoring and repairing it.
11. They also gave it to the carpenters and the masons to buy hewn stone and timber for the tie beams and rafters of the buildings which the kings of Judah had allowed to fall into ruin.
12. The men worked faithfully at their task; their overseers were Jahath and Obadiah, Levites of the line of Merari, and Zechariah and Meshullam, of the Kohathites, who directed them. All those Levites who were skillful with musical instruments
13. were in charge of the men who carried the burdens, and they directed all the workers in every kind of labor. Some of the other Levites were scribes, officials, and gatekeepers.
14. When they brought out the money that had been deposited in the house of the Lord, Hilkiah the priest found the book of the law of the Lord given through Moses.
15. He reported this to Shaphan the scribe, saying, “I have found the book of the law in the house of the Lord.” Hilkiah gave the book to Shaphan,