2 Kings 23:21-28

New Revised Standard Version, Anglicised

The Passover Celebrated

²¹ The king commanded all the people, ‘Keep the passover to the Lord your God as prescribed in this book of the covenant.’ ²² No such passover had been kept since the days of the judges who judged Israel, even during all the days of the kings of Israel and of the kings of Judah; ²³ but in the eighteenth year of King Josiah this passover was kept to the Lord in Jerusalem.

²⁴ Moreover, Josiah did away with the mediums, wizards, teraphim,^[a] idols, and all the abominations that were seen in the land of Judah and in Jerusalem, so that he established the words of the law that were written in the book that the priest Hilkiah had found in the house of the Lord. ²⁵ Before him there was no king like him, who turned to the Lord with all his heart, with all his soul, and with all his might, according to all the law of Moses; nor did any like him arise after him.

²⁶ Still the Lord did not turn from the fierceness of his great wrath, by which his anger was kindled against Judah, because of all the provocations with which Manasseh had provoked him. ²⁷ The Lord said, ‘I will remove Judah also out of my sight, as I have removed Israel; and I will reject this city that I have chosen, Jerusalem, and the house of which I said, My name shall be there.’

Josiah Dies in Battle

²⁸ Now the rest of the acts of Josiah, and all that he did, are they not written in the Book of the Annals of the Kings of Judah?