Josiah was only 8 years old when he started being king in the south part of Israel.

Josiah did what the Lord said was right.

He started going to talk to the Lord God 8 years after he was made king

and 4 years after that he started taking all the bad stuff out of the God’s special land where the people bowed down to the bad ones.

He fixed the broken places at God’s house.

When the workmen were fixing the broken places in God’s house, the priest found God’s book and they took it to king Josiah.

When the king read the words from God he was upset and tore his clothes because he said, God is really mad at our country because our fathers did not do what He said.

Then the king sent a man to find out words from God about this. The man went to a woman named Huldah. God was telling this woman His words at this time.

She talked to God and got His words to tell the king.

God said, Tell the man who sent you that I will bring bad on this place, because they left me and went to other gods, bad ones who didn’t make anything and can only do bad things.

But tell the king, Because your heart was soft to Me and you didn’t hold yourself high but lifted Me up high in your heart,

I have heard your prayer and will let you be king quietly until you are done, and then after you’re done being king, the bad things will come. You won’t have to see the bad things happen.

Then the king went to the house of the Lord and gathered all the people and the priests and workers at God’s house and he read all the words from God to them.

Then the king and the people all promised to follow the Lord only and do all His ways.

Josiah made the people stick to this promise and he took all the bad stuff away and the people followed the only Lord God all the days that Josiah was king.

Josiah set everything right to be God’s people in Israel and then they had a big party to the Lord God. It was the biggest party to God ever in Israel.

After all this, when two other kings were fighting each other, Josiah went out to get in the middle of their fight.

Men were sent from the king of Egypt to tell Josiah to stay out of the fight. But Josiah didn’t listen or ask the Lord and he was hurt in the battle and killed.

The people were very sad that their good king was dead

and sang sad songs for him.