Josiah Keeps the Passover

35 Then Josiah kept the Passover to the Lord in Jerusalem. They killed the Passover animals on the fourteenth day of the first month. ² He gave the religious leaders their duties and gave them strength to do the work of the Lord’s house. ³ And he said to the Levites who taught all Israel and who were holy to the Lord, “Put the holy box of the agreement in the house which Solomon the son of David, king of Israel, built. You do not need to carry it on your shoulders any longer. Now work for the Lord your God and His people Israel. ⁴ Make yourselves ready by your fathers’ houses in your groups, in the way that was written by King David of Israel and his son Solomon. ⁵ Stand in the holy place by the family groups of your brothers who are not religious leaders. And let some of the Levites help each family group of the people. ⁶ Now kill the Passover animals, and make yourselves holy. Make things ready for your brothers to obey the word of the Lord by Moses.”

⁷ Then Josiah gave flocks of lambs and young goats as Passover gifts for all the people who were there. He gave 30,000 of them, and 3,000 bulls. These were from the king’s animals. ⁸ His leaders also gave a free-will gift to the people, the religious leaders, and the Levites. Hilkiah, Zechariah and Jehiel, the leaders of the house of God, gave 2,600 animals from the flocks and 300 bulls to the religious leaders for the Passover gifts. ⁹ Conaniah, and Shemaiah and Nethanel his brothers, and Hashabiah, Jeiel and Jozabad, the leaders of the Levites, gave 5,000 animals from the flocks and 500 bulls to the Levites for the Passover gifts.

¹⁰ So everything was made ready for the Passover. The religious leaders stood in their places, and the Levites stood by their groups, as the king had told them. ¹¹ Then they killed the Passover animals. The religious leaders took the blood from them and put it on the altar. And the Levites cut the skins from the animals. ¹² They set aside the burnt gifts that they might give them to the family groups of the people, to give to the Lord, as it is written in the Book of Moses. They did the same thing with the bulls. ¹³ So they cooked the Passover animals on the fire as the Law said. They boiled the holy things in pots and deep dishes, and carried them in a hurry to all the people. ¹⁴ After this they made everything ready for themselves and for the religious leaders because the religious leaders, the sons of Aaron, were giving in worship the burnt gifts and the fat parts until night. So the Levites made things ready for themselves and for the religious leaders, the sons of Aaron. ¹⁵ The singers, the sons of Asaph, were also in their places, as had been written by David, Asaph, Heman, and Jeduthun the king’s man of God. The men who were gate-keepers did not have to leave their duty, because their brothers the Levites made things ready for them.

¹⁶ All the work of the Lord was made ready that day to keep the Passover, and to give burnt gifts on the Lord’s altar, as King Josiah had said. ¹⁷ So the people of Israel who were there kept the Passover at that time. And they kept the Special Supper of Bread Without Yeast for seven days. ¹⁸ There had not been kept a Passover like it in Israel since the days of Samuel the man of God. None of the kings of Israel had kept such a Passover as Josiah did with the religious leaders, the Levites, all Judah and Israel who were there, and the people of Jerusalem. ¹⁹ This Passover was kept in the eighteenth year of Josiah’s rule.

The End of Josiah’s Rule

²⁰ After all this, when Josiah had made the house of the Lord ready, King Neco of Egypt came up to make war at Carchemish on the Euphrates. And Josiah went out to fight against him. ²¹ But Neco sent men to him, saying, “What have we to do with each other, O King of Judah? I am not coming against you today but against the house with which I am at war, and God has told me to hurry. Do not stand in the way of God Who is with me, or He will destroy you.” ²² But Josiah would not turn away from him. He made himself to look like someone else, so he could fight against him. He did not listen to the words of Neco from the mouth of God, but came to make war on the Plain of Megiddo. ²³ And the bowmen shot King Josiah. The king told his servants, “Take me away, for I am hurt.” ²⁴ So his servants took him out of the war-wagon and carried him in his second war-wagon, and brought him to Jerusalem. And there he died. He was buried in the graves of his fathers. All Judah and Jerusalem were filled with sorrow for Josiah. ²⁵ Then Jeremiah sang a song of sorrow for Josiah. And all the male and female singers speak about Josiah in their songs of sorrow to this day. They made them a law in Israel, and they are written in the Lamentations. ²⁶ Now the rest of the acts of Josiah and his good works as written in the Law of the Lord, ²⁷ and his acts, first to last, are written in the Book of the Kings of Israel and Judah.