2 Chronicles 35

35 ¹ Josiah kept a Passover to our Father in Jerusalem, and they slaughtered the Passover lamb on the fourteenth day of the first month. ² He appointed the priests to their duties and encouraged them in the service of the house of our Father. ³ He said to the Levites who taught all Israel and who were holy to our Father, "Put the holy ark in the house that Solomon son of David king of Israel built. You no longer need to carry it on your shoulders. Now serve your Father and his people Israel. ⁴ Prepare yourselves by your fathers' houses according to your divisions, following the written instructions of David king of Israel and the instructions of his son Solomon. ⁵ Stand in the holy place according to the family groupings of your lay brothers, with one Levite family division assigned to each group. ⁶ Slaughter the Passover lamb, consecrate yourselves, and prepare for your brothers, following the word of our Father given through Moses.

⁷ Josiah gave the lay people thirty thousand lambs and young goats and three thousand bulls for the Passover offerings — all from the king's own possessions. ⁸ His officials also contributed willingly to the people, to the priests, and to the Levites. Hilkiah, Zechariah, and Jehiel, the chief officers of the house of our Father, gave the priests two thousand six hundred Passover offerings and three hundred bulls. ⁹ Conaniah, along with Shemaiah and Nethanel his brothers, and Hashabiah, Jeiel, and Jozabad, the chiefs of the Levites, contributed to the Levites five thousand Passover offerings and five hundred bulls.

¹⁰ So the service was arranged, and the priests stood in their places and the Levites in their divisions, according to the king's command. ¹¹ They slaughtered the Passover lamb, and the priests sprinkled the blood handed to them, while the Levites skinned the animals. ¹² They set aside the burnt offerings and distributed them to the family groups of the lay people, to present to our Father as it is written in the book of Moses; and they did the same with the bulls. ¹³ They roasted the Passover lamb in fire as prescribed, and they boiled the holy offerings in pots, kettles, and pans, and carried them quickly to all the lay people. ¹⁴ Afterward they prepared for themselves and for the priests, because the priests, the sons of Aaron, were busy offering the burnt offerings and the fat portions until nightfall; so the Levites prepared for themselves and for the priests, the sons of Aaron. ¹⁵ The singers, the sons of Asaph, were at their stations according to the command of David, Asaph, Heman, and Jeduthun the king's seer; and the gatekeepers were at each gate. None of them needed to leave their service, for their brothers the Levites prepared for them.

¹⁶ So all the service of our Father was arranged that day, to keep the Passover and to offer burnt offerings on the altar of our Father, according to the command of King Josiah. ¹⁷ The Israelites who were present kept the Passover at that time, and the Feast of Unleavened Bread for seven days. ¹⁸ No Passover like this had been kept in Israel since the days of Samuel the prophet; none of the kings of Israel had ever kept such a Passover as Josiah did, with the priests, the Levites, all Judah and Israel who were present, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem. ¹⁹ This Passover was kept in the eighteenth year of Josiah's reign.

Josiah Falls in Battle at Megiddo

²⁰ After all this, when Josiah had set the temple in order, Neco king of Egypt went up to fight at Carchemish on the Euphrates, and Josiah marched out to meet him. ²¹ But Neco sent messengers to him, saying, "What quarrel is there between you and me, king of Judah? I am not coming against you today, but against the house with which I am at war. God has told me to hurry; stop opposing God, who is with me, or he will destroy you."

²² Yet Josiah would not turn away from him, but disguised himself to fight with him. He did not listen to the words of Neco, which came from the mouth of our Father, and he went to fight in the plain of Megiddo. ^a a v22 Our Father's warning reached Josiah even through a foreign king's mouth, but Josiah would not listen — and what was meant to protect him went unheeded. ²³ The archers shot King Josiah, and the king said to his servants, "Take me away, for I am badly wounded."

²⁴ So his servants took him out of his chariot, carried him in his second chariot, and brought him to Jerusalem. There he died and was buried in the tombs of his fathers, and all Judah and Jerusalem mourned for Josiah.

²⁵ Jeremiah composed laments for Josiah, and to this day all the singing men and women sing laments for Josiah. These became a custom in Israel, and they are written in the Laments. ²⁶ Now the rest of the acts of Josiah, and his faithful deeds in keeping with what is written in the law of our Father, ²⁷ and his deeds, from first to last, are written in the Book of the Kings of Israel and Judah.