1. JOSIAH WAS eight years old when he began his thirty-one-year reign in Jerusalem. His mother was Jedidah daughter of Adaiah of Bozkath.
2. He did right in the sight of the Lord and walked in all the ways of David his [forefather], and turned not aside to the right hand or to the left.
3. In the eighteenth year of King Josiah, he sent Shaphan son of Azaliah, the son of Meshullam, the scribe, to the Lord's house, saying,
4. Go up to Hilkiah the high priest, that he may count the money brought into the house of the Lord, which the keepers of the door have gathered from the people. [II Kings 12:4ff.]
5. And let them deliver it into the hands of the workmen who have oversight of the Lord's house, to give to the laborers engaged in the repairing of the Lord's house–
6. That is, to the carpenters, builders, and masons–and to buy timber and hewn stone to repair the house.
7. However, there was no accounting required of them for the money delivered into their hands, because they dealt faithfully.
8. Hilkiah the high priest said to Shaphan the scribe, I have found the Book of the Law in the house of the Lord! Hilkiah gave the book to Shaphan, and he read it.