1. Josiah was 8 years old when he began to rule, and he was king for 31 years in Jerusalem. His mother was Jedidah, daughter of Adaiah from Bozkath.
2. Josiah did what the Lord considered right. He lived in the ways of his ancestor David and never stopped.
3. In Josiah’s eighteenth year as king of Judah, he sent the scribe Shaphan, son of Azaliah and grandson of Meshullam, to the Lord’s temple with these instructions: