and ended well, although he had begun evilly.
His son Ammon very unhappily
succeeded to his kingdom, and ruled it unjustly,
so that he forsook the Almighty God,
and practised idolatry, and wrought not deeds of repentance.
Two years he reigned without prudence;
then his thanes agreed that they would kill him,
and Josiah his son straightway succeeded to the kingdom
in youthful age, and imitated David
in all goodness, and performed God's will.
He cast away evil, and the wrong (false) worships
of the false gods in which his father had believed,
and renewed God's law with all observances,
and destroyed the witches, and put the wizards to flight,
and cast down witchcraft, to please his Lord.
There was indeed no king who turned so zealously
with his whole heart to the Almighty God
before Josiah, neither afterward came there
any like to him, who so believed on God.
One and thirty years he reigned gloriously in Jerusalem,
and works of mercy according to the law of Moses
he ever practised, even as the scriptures tell us.
We cannot write the manifold histories
of all the Jewish kings in this little treatise,
or how the people of Israel all lived;
but we say in truth, that he who obeyeth sins
and despiseth God's commands, now in the gospel's age,
is like the kings who chose idolatry,
and despised their Creator; "Who is verily
One God Almighty, ever reigning ;
to Whom be glory to all ages of ages. Amen.
