1. Josiah was eight years old when he became king, and he reigned for thirty-one years in Jerusalem.
2. He did what the Lord approved and followed in his ancestor David’s footsteps; he did not deviate to the right or the left.
3. In the eighth year of his reign, while he was still young, he began to seek the God of his ancestor David. In his twelfth year he began ridding Judah and Jerusalem of the high places, Asherah poles, idols, and images.
4. He ordered the altars of the Baals to be torn down, and broke the incense altars that were above them. He smashed the Asherah poles, idols and images, crushed them up and sprinkled the dust over the tombs of those who had sacrificed to them.
5. He burned the bones of the pagan priests on their altars; he purified Judah and Jerusalem.
6. In the cities of Manasseh, Ephraim, and Simeon, as far as Naphtali, and in the ruins around them,