18. “Leave it as it is,” Josiah ordered. “His bones are not to be moved.”So his bones were not moved, neither were those of the prophet who had come from Samaria.
19. In every city of Israel King Josiah tore down all the pagan places of worship which had been built by the kings of Israel, who thereby aroused the Lord's anger. He did to all those altars what he had done in Bethel.
20. He killed all the pagan priests on the altars where they served, and he burnt human bones on every altar. Then he returned to Jerusalem.
21. King Josiah ordered the people to celebrate the Passover in honour of the Lord their God, as written in the book of the covenant.
22. No Passover like this one had ever been celebrated by any of the kings of Israel or of Judah, since the time when judges ruled the nation.
23. Now at last, in the eighteenth year of the reign of Josiah, the Passover was celebrated in Jerusalem.
24. In order to enforce the laws written in the book that the High Priest Hilkiah had found in the Temple, King Josiah removed from Jerusalem and the rest of Judah all the mediums and fortune tellers, and all the household gods, idols, and all other pagan objects of worship.
25. There had never been a king like him before, who served the Lord with all his heart, mind, and strength, obeying all the Law of Moses; nor has there been a king like him since.
26. But the Lord's fierce anger had been aroused against Judah by what King Manasseh had done, and even now it did not die down.
27. The Lord said, “I will do to Judah what I have done to Israel: I will banish the people of Judah from my sight, and I will reject Jerusalem, the city I chose, and the Temple, the place I said was where I should be worshipped.”
28. Everything else that King Josiah did is recorded in The History of the Kings of Judah.
29. While Josiah was king, King Neco of Egypt led an army to the River Euphrates to help the emperor of Assyria. King Josiah tried to stop the Egyptian army at Megiddo and was killed in battle.
30. His officials placed his body in a chariot and took it back to Jerusalem, where he was buried in the royal tombs.The people of Judah chose Josiah's son Joahaz and anointed him king.
31. Joahaz was 23 years old when he became king of Judah, and he ruled in Jerusalem for three months. His mother was Hamutal, the daughter of Jeremiah from the city of Libnah.
32. Following the example of his ancestors, he sinned against the Lord.