2Ch 34:1-13 | ESV | STEP | Josiah was eight years old when he began to reign , and he reigned thirty-one years in Jerusalem .

1 ^aJosiah was eight years old when he began to reign, and he reigned thirty-one years in Jerusalem. 2 And he did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, and walked in the ways of David his father; and he did not turn aside to the right hand or to the left. 3 For in the eighth year of his reign, while he was yet a boy, he began to seek the God of David his father, and in the twelfth year he began to purge Judah and Jerusalem of the high places, the ^bAsherim, and the carved and the metal images. 4 And they chopped down the altars of the Baals in his presence, and he cut down the ^cincense altars that stood above them. And he broke in pieces the ^dAsherim and the carved and the metal images, and he made dust of them and ^escattered it over the graves of those who had sacrificed to them. 5 ^fHe also burned the bones of the priests on their altars and cleansed Judah and Jerusalem. 6 And in the ^gcities of Manasseh, Ephraim, and Simeon, and as far as Naphtali, in their ruins ^{▼▼The meaning of the Hebrew is uncertain} all around, 7 he broke down the altars and beat the ⁱAsherim and the images ^jinto powder and cut down all the incense altars throughout all the land of Israel. Then he returned to Jerusalem.

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8 ^kNow in the eighteenth year of his reign, when he had cleansed the land and the house, he sent Shaphan the son of Azaliah, and Maaseiah the ^lgovernor of the city, and Joah the son of Joahaz, ^mthe recorder, to repair the house of the Lord his God. 9 They came to ⁿHilkiah the high priest and gave him the money that had been brought into the house of God, which the Levites, the keepers of the threshold, had collected from ^oManasseh and Ephraim and from all the remnant of Israel and from all Judah and Benjamin and from the inhabitants of Jerusalem. 10 And they gave it to the workmen who were working in the house of the Lord. And the workmen who were working in the house of the Lord gave it for repairing and restoring the house. 11 They gave it to the carpenters and the builders to buy quarried stone, and timber for binders and ^pbeams for the buildings that the kings of Judah had let go to ruin. 12 And the men did the work faithfully. Over them were set Jahath and Obadiah the Levites, of the sons of Merari, and Zechariah and Meshullam, of the sons of the Kohathites, to have oversight. ^qThe Levites, all who were skillful with instruments of music, 13 were over ^rthe burden-bearers and directed all who did work in every kind of service, and some of the Levites were scribes and officials and gatekeepers.