¹⁹ Thus it happened, when the king heard the words of the Law, that he tore his clothes. ²⁰ Then the king commanded Hilkiah, ^(A)Ahikam the son of Shaphan, ^[a]Abdon the son of Micah, Shaphan the scribe, and Asaiah a servant of the king, saying, ²¹ “Go, inquire of the Lord for me, and for those who are left in Israel and Judah, concerning the words of the book that is found; for great is the wrath of the Lord that is poured out on us, because our fathers have not ^(B)kept the word of the Lord, to do according to all that is written in this book.”

Josiah Restores True Worship^(A)

^29 (B)Then the king sent and gathered all the elders of Judah and Jerusalem. ³⁰ The king went up to the house of the Lord, with all the men of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem—the priests and the Levites, and all the people, great and small. And he ^(C)read in their hearing all the words of the Book of the Covenant which had been found in the house of the Lord. ³¹ Then the king ^(D)stood in ^(E)his place and made a ^(F)covenant before the Lord, to follow the Lord, and to keep His commandments and His testimonies and His statutes with all his heart and all his soul, to perform the words of the covenant that were written in this book. ³² And he made all who were present in Jerusalem and Benjamin take a stand. So the inhabitants of Jerusalem did according to the covenant of God, the God of their fathers. ³³ Thus Josiah removed all the ^(G)abominations from all the country that belonged to the children of Israel, and made all who were present in Israel ^[a]diligently serve the Lord their God. ^(H)All his days they did not depart from following the Lord God of their fathers.