Study Desk

His prayer and how God heard his prayer, and of all his sin and how he was not faithful, are found in the writings of the men who spoke for God. Also it is written where he built the high places, and made the objects of the false goddess Asherah, and made objects to look like gods, before he put away his pride.

So Manasseh died and they buried him in his own house. And his son Amon became king in his place.

Amon did what was sinful in the eyes of the Lord, as his father Manasseh had done. He killed animals in worship to all the false gods his father Manasseh had made, and he served them.

He did not put away his pride before the Lord as his father Manasseh had done, but Amon added to his guilt.

His servants made plans against him, and killed him in his own house.

But the people of the land killed all those who had killed King Amon and made his son Josiah king in his place.

He did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, and walked in the ways of his father David. He did not turn aside to the right or to the left.

For in the eighth year of his rule while he was still young, he began to look for the God of his father David. In the twelfth year he began to take the sinful things out of Judah and Jerusalem. He took away the high places, the objects of the false goddess Asherah, and all the objects made to look like gods.

Now it was the eighteenth year of his rule, and Josiah had made the land and the Lord's house free from worshiping false gods. At that time he sent Shaphan the son of Azaliah, Maaseiah the leader of the city, and Joah the son of Joahaz, who wrote down the things that happened, to do the work needed on the house of the Lord his God.

When King Josiah heard the words of the Law, he tore his clothes.

‘Your heart was broken and you had no pride before God when you heard His words against this place and its people. And because you came before Me with no pride, tore your clothes, and cried before Me, I have heard you,' says the Lord.

Then the king stood in his place and made an agreement before the Lord. He agreed to follow the Lord, to obey His Laws with all his heart and soul, and to do what is written in the agreement in this book.

And he said to the Levites who taught all Israel and who were holy to the Lord, "Put the holy box of the agreement in the house which Solomon the son of David, king of Israel, built. You do not need to carry it on your shoulders any longer. Now work for the Lord your God and His people Israel.

Make yourselves ready by your fathers' houses in your groups, in the way that was written by King David of Israel and his son Solomon.

His leaders also gave a free-will gift to the people, the religious leaders, and the Levites. Hilkiah, Zechariah and Jehiel, the leaders of the house of God, gave 2,600 animals from the flocks and 300 bulls to the religious leaders for the Passover gifts.

Conaniah, and Shemaiah and Nethanel his brothers, and Hashabiah, Jeiel and Jozabad, the leaders of the Levites, gave 5,000 animals from the flocks and 500 bulls to the Levites for the Passover gifts.

And the bowmen shot King Josiah. The king told his servants, "Take me away, for I am hurt."

So his servants took him out of the war-wagon and carried him in his second war-wagon, and brought him to Jerusalem. And there he died. He was buried in the graves of his fathers. All Judah and Jerusalem were filled with sorrow for Josiah.

Now the rest of the acts of Josiah and his good works as written in the Law of the Lord,

and his acts, first to last, are written in the Book of the Kings of Israel and Judah.