Authority of Scripture
When Hezekiah came to the throne, he found that the doors of the temple had been shut up, the lamps put out, and neither incense burnt nor sacrifice offered according to the Scriptures, in the holy place to the Lord God of Israel, but filthiness was in the holy place. The people had forsaken the Lord and turned their backs upon the Lord; they had burnt incense to other gods and made altars in every corner of Jerusalem. Sensitive to these fearful evils, the king brought in the priests and the Levites, opened the doors, cleansed the house, offered a sin offering, and made reconciliation with the blood upon the altar for all Israel. Afterward he utterly destroyed all the images and groves. This was according to the law of the Lord.
Moreover, they found they had not kept the Passover unto the Lord God of Israel for a long time in such sort as it is written. So the king sent to all Israel and Judah that they should come to the house of the Lord at Jerusalem, to keep the Passover unto the Lord God of Israel. This was heartily responded to. "So there was great joy in Jerusalem: for since the time of Solomon, the son of David, king of Israel [nearly three hundred years] there was not the like in Jerusalem." 2 Chron. 30:26.
Not many years had passed before the sin of Judah became very great again, helped on by the great wickedness of King Manasseh. So when young Josiah came to the throne, carved images, molten images, groves and the altars of Baalim were very abundant in Judah. The young king destroyed these and set to work to repair the house of the Lord. In it the priest found "a book of the law of the Lord" given by Moses. This book was read before the king. "And it came to pass, when the king had heard the words of the law, that he rent his clothes." 2 Chron. 34:19. He saw they were all justly exposed to God’s wrath. So weighty was the authority of the Word of God to the king's soul that he read it to all the people great and small, "and he read in their ears all the words of the book of the covenant that was found in the house of the Lord." v. 30.