Josiah Reigns in Judah
1 1Josiah 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 eyes of the LORD, and walked in the ways of David his father; and he did not turn aside to the right hand or to the left.
3
For in the eighth year of his reign, while he was yet a boy, he began to seek the God of David his father, and in the twelfth year he began to purge Judah and Jerusalem of the high places, the
2Asherim, and the carved and the metal images.
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And they chopped down the altars of the Baals in his presence, and he cut down the
3incense altars that stood above them. And he broke in pieces the
4Asherim and the carved and the metal images, and he made dust of them and
5scattered it over the graves of those who had sacrificed to them.
5
6He also burned the bones of the priests on their altars and cleansed Judah and Jerusalem.
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And in the
7cities of Manasseh, Ephraim, and Simeon, and as far as Naphtali, in their ruins all around,
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he broke down the altars and beat the
8Asherim and the images
9into powder and cut down all the incense altars throughout all the land of Israel. Then he returned to Jerusalem.
The Book of the Law Found
8 10Now in the eighteenth year of his reign, when he had cleansed the land and the house, he sent Shaphan the son of Azaliah, and Maaseiah the
11governor of the city, and Joah the son of Joahaz,
12the recorder, to repair the house of the LORD his God.
9
They came to
13Hilkiah the high priest and gave him the money that had been brought into the house of God, which the Levites, the keepers of the threshold, had collected from
14Manasseh and Ephraim and from all the remnant of Israel and from all Judah and Benjamin and from the inhabitants of Jerusalem.