2 Chronicles 34:1-11 ▼

1 JOSIAH was eight years old when he began to reign, and he reigned thirty-one years in Jerusalem.

2 And he did that which was right in the sight of the LORD, and walked in the ways of David his father, and he turned neither to the right hand nor to the left.

3 For in the eighth year of his reign, while he was still a little boy, he began to pray to the LORD the God of David his father; and in the twelfth year he began to purge Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem. Moreover he began to demolish altars, idols, carved images, and idol temples,

4 And the decorations, necklaces, bells, and all the trees that were made for idols, he broke in pieces and ground them to dust and scattered their ashes upon the graves of those who had sacrificed to them.

5 And the bones of the priests who served them, he dug out of their graves and brought them and burned them, and cleansed Judah and Jerusalem.

6 And so did he in the cities of Manasseh and Ephraim and Simeon and Naphtali, in their streets round about.

7 And when he had broken down the altars and smashed in pieces the images, and ground them into dust and scattered it throughout all the land of Israel, he returned to Jerusalem.

8 Now in the eighteenth year of his reign, when he had purged the land of Israel and his own house, he sent for Shaphan the son of Azaliah and Maasiah the scribe of the city, and said to them, Go, repair the house of the LORD your God.

9 And when they came to Hilkiah the high priest, they delivered the money that was brought into the house of the LORD, which the Levites the keepers of the doors had collected from Manasseh and Ephraim and from all the remnant of Israel and from all Judah and Benjamin and from all the inhabitants of Jerusalem.

10 And they delivered it into the hands of the workmen who had the oversight of the house of the LORD, and they gave it to the workmen who did the work in the house of the LORD, to repair and to plaster the house;

11 And they gave it also to the carpenters and to the masons and to those who bought precious stones and timber for the repairing and for the plastering of the house which the kings of Judah had destroyed.