1
And Josias kept a phase to the Lord in Jerusalem, and it was sacrificed on the fourteenth day of the first month.
2
And he set the priests in their offices, and exhorted them to minister in the house of the Lord.
3
And he spoke to the Levites, by whose instruction all Israel was sanctified to the Lord, saying: Put the ark in the sanctuary of the temple, which Solomon the son of David king of Israel built: for you shall carry it no more: but minister now to the Lord your God, and to his people Israel.
4
And prepare yourselves by your houses, and families according to your courses, as David king of Israel commanded, and Solomon his son hath written.
5
And serve ye in the sanctuary by the families and companies of Levi.
6
And being sanctified kill the phase, and prepare your brethren, that they may do according to the words which the Lord spoke by the hand of Moses.
7
And Josias gave to all the people that were found there in the solemnity of the phase, of lambs and of kids of the flocks, and of other small cattle thirty thousand, and of oxen three thousand, all these were of the king’s substance.
8
And his princes willingly offered what they had vowed, both to the people and to the priests and the Levites. Moreover Helcias, and Zacharias, and Jahiel rulers of the house of the Lord, gave to the priests to keep the phase two thousand six hundred small cattle, and three hundred oxen.
9
And Chonenias, and Semeias and Nathanael, his brethren, and Hasabias, and Jehiel, and Jozabad princes of the Levites, gave to the rest of the Levites to celebrate the phase five thousand small cattle, and five hundred oxen.
10
And the ministry was prepared, and the priests stood in their office: the Levites also in their companies, according to the king’s commandment.