Josiah rules Judah as king
1 Josiah was eight years old when he became king. He ruled as king in Jerusalem for 31 years. 2 Josiah did things that the Lord said were right. He lived in the good ways of his ancestor, King David. He did not turn away from the Lord's teaching in any way.
34:1Josiah began to rule in about 640 BC. He died in about 609 BC.
3 When Josiah had been king for eight years, he was still a young man. At that time he began to worship God, as his ancestor David had done. When he had been king for 12 years, he started to remove the places in Jerusalem and in all Judah where people worshipped false gods. He removed the altars on the hills, the Asherah poles, the idols and the images of false gods. 4 He told his men to knock down the altars where people worshipped the idols of Baal. He broke into pieces the altars for incense that were near the other altars. He destroyed the Asherah poles, the idols and the images. He broke them all into very small pieces. He threw the bits over the graves of the people who had offered sacrifices to those false gods.
5 Josiah took the bones of the priests who had made sacrifices to the false gods. He burned the priests' bones on their own altars. That is how Josiah made Judah and Jerusalem clean again. 6 He went to the towns that belonged to the tribes of Manasseh, Ephraim and Simeon. He even went as far as Naphtali. He did the same thing in all those towns, as well as in the villages around them where nobody lived. 7 He knocked down the altars and the Asherah poles. He completely destroyed the idols and the altars for incense everywhere in the kingdom of Israel. Then he returned to Jerusalem.
34:6These tribes belonged to Israel, the kingdom in the north.
