Josiah tears his clothes when he hears the book of the law read aloud.

The discovered book is almost certainly Deuteronomy, and hearing its covenant curses against the backdrop of everything Judah has become under Manasseh produces in the young king immediate, genuine, total anguish.

His response is the most comprehensive covenant reform in the entire history of the monarchy.

He tears down the high places.

He destroys the altars in the temple courts.

He burns the Asherah pole.

He desecrates the child sacrifice sites in Hinnom.

He demolishes the golden calves at Bethel.

He reinstates Passover with a thoroughness the text says has not been seen since the judges.

The text’s assessment is categorical: Before him there was no king like him, who turned to God with all his heart and with all his soul and with all his might. And within twenty-three years of his death, Jerusalem falls to Babylon and the temple burns. The reform happened. But the consequences came anyway.