1
Josiah was eight years old when he began to reign; and he reigned thirty-one years in Jerusalem.
2
He did that which was right in the eyes of Yahweh, and walked in the ways of David his father, and didn't turn aside to the right hand or to the left.
3
For 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 Asherim, and the engraved images, and the molten images.
4
They broke down the altars of the Baals in his presence; and the sun-images that were on high above them he hewed down; and the Asherim, and the engraved images, and the molten images, he broke in pieces, and made dust of them, and strewed it on the graves [of those] who had sacrificed to them.
5
He burnt the bones of the priests on their altars, and purged Judah and Jerusalem.
6
[So did he] in the cities of Manasseh and Ephraim and Simeon, even to Naphtali, in their ruins round about.
7
He broke down the altars, and beat the Asherim and the engraved images into powder, and hewed down all the sun-images throughout all the land of Israel, and returned to Jerusalem.
8
Now in the eighteenth year of his reign, when he had 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 recorder, to repair the house of Yahweh his God.
9
They came to Hilkiah the high priest, and delivered the money that was brought into the house of God, which the Levites, the keepers of the threshold, 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.