2 Chronicles 35 - Summary

Josiah kept a Passover to the Lord in Jerusalem on the fourteenth day of the first month, setting the priests in their duties and encouraging them in the service of the Lord's house, instructing the Levites who taught all Israel to prepare themselves by fathers' houses and divisions as prescribed by David and Solomon for slaughtering the Passover lambs and arranging the burnt offerings. The celebration was unprecedented: no such Passover had been kept since Samuel the prophet, and none of the kings of Israel had kept such a Passover as Josiah kept with the priests, Levites, and all Judah and Israel present. After all this faithful temple preparation, Neco king of Egypt came to fight at Carchemish on the Euphrates, and Josiah went out to engage him despite Neco's warning that God had commanded him to hurry and Josiah should not oppose God; Josiah disguised himself in battle, was mortally wounded by archers, and died in Jerusalem amid great lamentation, with Jeremiah composing a lament, and his burial was with his fathers while all Judah and Jerusalem mourned.