3 For in the eighth year of his reign, while he was yet young, he began to seek after the God of David, his father; and in the twelfth year he began to purge Judah and Jerusalem from the high places and the groves and the graven images and the molten images.
4 And they broke down the altars of the Baalim in his presence; and the images of the sun, that were on high above them, he cut down; and the groves and the graven images and the molten images, he broke in pieces and made dust of them and scattered it upon the graves of those that had sacrificed unto them.
5 And he burnt the bones of the priests upon their altars and cleansed Judah and Jerusalem.
6 He did the same in the cities of Manasseh, Ephraim and Simeon, even unto Naphtali, with their swords round about.
7 And when he had broken down the altars and the groves and had beaten the graven images into powder and cut down all the idols of the sun throughout all the land of Israel, he returned to Jerusalem.
8 Now in the eighteenth year of his reign, when he had purged the land and the house, he sent Shaphan, the son of Azaliah, and Maaseiah the governor of the city, and Joah, the son of Joahaz, the writer of chronicles, to repair the house of the Lord his God.
9 And they went to Hilkiah, the high priest, and delivered the money that was brought into the house of God, which the Levites that kept the doors had gathered of the hand of Manasseh and Ephraim and of all the remnant of Israel and of all Judah and Benjamin, having then returned to Jerusalem.