Transcript

[SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE] I will never forget the day that Josiah, the great king of Judah, was brought back from battle wounded.

For I had seen him battle all the years of his life against a larger enemy, one which caused the hearts of his people to forsake their God.

But as Josiah turned to the Lord with all his heart and obeyed the words written in the book of the law, the hearts of his people, which had been lost, were reclaimed, yea, even my own. 33 years earlier, while I was in my 17th year, Josiah began to forsake the ways of his idolatrous fathers, who had done evil in the sight of the Lord. For they had built altars for Baal, and graven images, and caused that children should again pass through the fires of Molech in the valley of Hinnom. Indeed they had wrought more wickedness than all the heathen nations that had gone before them. [CHANTING, SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE, DRUMBEATS]

Josiah. Joisah, you displease me. You displease Molech.

And the servants of king Amon conspired against the king and slew him in his own house. Then the people slew all those who had conspired against king Amon. And the people of the land made Joisah, his son, king instead. In the 18th year of his reign, he began to repair the temple his fathers had destroyed. For Josiah had inherited a wicked people, and the records of the Lord's words, kept by Moses, had been lost. And Josiah sought after the true God of Israel and began to purge Israel of false gods, beginning with those in the courts of the house of the Lord.

But not withstanding Josiah's efforts to remove these abominations from the midst of his people, he could not purge them from their hearts and minds. My king? My king, I come with word. The silver that is in the temple treasury shall be gathered tomorrow and delivered to the workmen that do labor on the temple. In their hands shall the temple of the Lord be again made whole, and, with it, the hearts of a few will be recovered.

Yet many, with their eyes, will not see, with their ears, will they not hear.

High priest, is there not anything more that can make this people again return to the true God, the Lord God of Israel? Who among this people remembers the God of whom you speak? For surely if you seek to reclaim them to a God, today, you need look no further than this pile of dust. Such was the evil that had taken root among the Lord's people. Indeed, such was the evil that had taken root in my own heart.

[SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE] My king, the high priest has discovered an ancient book hidden in the temple and has delivered it unto me. It is the book of the law, that which was given by Moses.

These many days you come to me and talk of silver and of the works of men, and yet today.

The Lord, my God, has heard my prayers.

[SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE] And Shaphan the scribe read the book of the law unto the king. And the king heard the word of the Lord, as if spoken for the first time. [SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE] Josiah feared that the Lord's wrath would be kindled against Israel, so he desired that they should again hearken unto the word of God, as written in the book of the law.

And I also heard the word of the Lord. I saw the book of the law with my own eyes and held it in my own arms. The king had been greatly moved by it. It also weighed upon me, and my heart began to soften.

[SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE] Josiah then gathered unto him all the elders of Judah and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and he read in their ears all the words of the book of the law.

Oh Lord, I and as many of these, Thy people, that will stand with me, do covenant this day to walk after Thee, and to keep Thy commandments and Thy statutes with all our hearts and all our souls, to perform the words of the covenant that written in this book.

And on that day, the people of Judah returned to the Lord, the true God of Israel, and I returned with them.

And according to the book of the law, Josiah took away all the abominations out of Israel and burned all the vessels that were made for Baal and for Molech without Jerusalem.

And these things did Josiah do that he might perform the words of the law, which were written in the book that Hilkiah the priest found in the house of the Lord.

[SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE] And so it was that they brought king Josiah to Jerusalem, where he died and was buried. And all Judah mourned for Josiah. And like unto him was there no king before him, neither after him arose there any like him.

Josiah and the Book of the Law

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(2 Kings 22-23) King Josiah motivates his kingdom to repent from their wicked ways by reading from the Book of the Law.
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