Keepers of the Covenant & World Communion Sunday

2 Kings 22:1-10; 23:1-3

Josiah was 8 years old when he became king, and he ruled for thirty-one years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Jedidah; she was Adaiah’s daughter and was from Bozkath. He did what was right in the Lord’s eyes, and walked in the ways of his ancestor David—not deviating from it even a bit to the right or left.

In the eighteenth year of King Josiah’s rule, he sent the secretary Shaphan, Azaliah’s son and Meshullam’s grandson, to the Lord’s temple with the following orders: “Go to the high priest Hilkiah. Have him carefully count the money that has been brought to the Lord’s temple and that has been collected from the people. It should be given to the supervisors in charge of the Lord’s temple, who in turn should pay it to those who are repairing the temple— the carpenters, the builders, and the masons. It should be used to pay for lumber and quarried stone to repair the temple. But there’s no need to check on them regarding the money they receive, because they are honest workers.”

The high priest Hilkiah told Shaphan the secretary: “I have found the Instruction scroll in the Lord’s temple.” Hilkiah turned the scroll over to Shaphan, who read it. Then Shaphan told the king, “Hilkiah the priest has given me a scroll,” and he read it out loud before the king.

The king sent a message, and all of Judah’s and Jerusalem’s elders gathered before him. Then the king went up to the Lord’s temple, together with all the people of Judah and all the citizens of Jerusalem, the priests and the prophets, and all the people, young and old alike. There the king read out loud all the words of the covenant scroll that had been found in the Lord’s temple. The king stood beside the pillar and made a covenant with the Lord that he would follow the Lord by keeping his commandments, his laws, and his regulations with all his heart and all his being in order to fulfill the words of this covenant that were written in this scroll. All of the people accepted the covenant.