Josiah’s Repair of the Temple

⁸ In the eighteenth year of his reign,^(A) in order to cleanse the land and the temple, Josiah sent Shaphan son of Azaliah, along with Maaseiah the governor^(B) of the city and the court historian Joah son of Joahaz, to repair the temple of the Lord his God.

⁹ So they went to the high priest Hilkiah^(C) and gave him the silver brought into God’s temple. The Levites and the doorkeepers had collected it from Manasseh, Ephraim,^(D) and from the entire remnant of Israel, and from all Judah, Benjamin, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem. ¹⁰ They gave it to those doing the work—those who oversaw the Lord’s temple. They gave it to the workmen who were working in the Lord’s temple, to repair and restore the temple; ¹¹ they gave it to the carpenters and builders and also used it to buy quarried stone and timbers—for joining and making beams—for the buildings that Judah’s kings had destroyed.

¹² The men were doing the work with integrity. Their overseers were Jahath and Obadiah, Levites from the Merarites, and Zechariah and Meshullam from the Kohathites as supervisors. The Levites were all skilled with musical instruments.^{(E) 13} They were also over the porters and were supervising all those doing the work task by task. Some of the Levites were secretaries, officers, and gatekeepers.