The Reign of Josiah

The rule then passed to his son Josiah. He is said to have been very devout and to have given the utmost care to divine things, greatly helped by the priest Hilkiah. The priest had found in the temple a book written with the words of God, and Josiah read it. It said that the Hebrew nation would be destroyed because of its many acts of ungodliness and sacrilege. By his devout prayers to God and his constant tears, Josiah turned aside the overthrow that hung over them. [a]

When he learned through the prophetess Huldah that this favor had been granted him, he set himself with still greater care to practice the worship of God, since he was now under obligation to the divine goodness. So he burned all the vessels that the superstition of earlier kings had consecrated to idols. For profane practices had grown so strong that people used to pay divine honors to the sun and moon, and they had even set up shrines made of metal to these imagined gods. Josiah ground these to powder, and he also killed the priests of the profane temples. He did not spare even the tombs of the ungodly, and it was noted that in this way what the prophet had foretold long before was fulfilled.

In the eighteenth year of his reign the Passover was celebrated. About three years later he went out to battle against Neco, king of Egypt, who was making war on the Assyrians, and before the armies had properly engaged he was wounded by an arrow. He was carried back to the city and died of that wound, after reigning twenty-one years.