2 Chronicles 34:31
And the king stood in his place, and made a covenant before the LORD, to walk after the LORD, and to keep his commandments, and his testimonies, and his statutes, with all his heart, and with all his soul, to perform the words of the covenant which are written in this book.
The book of the covenant had been found and read in the hearing of the people, and Josiah then stood in his place in the house of the Lord before the elders of Judah and Jerusalem, the priests, the Levites, and all the people great and small. The book laid bare Israel's departure from God's statutes, and its public reading in Josiah's day, as also in Ezra's day, was meant to work deep repentance and a return to the Lord. In response he made a covenant before the Lord to walk after the Lord and to keep His commandments and His testimonies and His statutes with all his heart and with all his soul, in order to perform the words written in the book, a wholehearted pledge of obedience.
He caused all who were present in Jerusalem and Benjamin to stand to the covenant, and the congregation joined with him in a solemn covenant to keep the commandments, so that the inhabitants of Jerusalem acted according to the covenant of God. His repentance and reform took away the abominations, put down idolatry until it was apparently uprooted, reopened the temple and re-established sacrificial offerings there, and made all present in Israel serve the Lord their God. It was a good and well-done work, for all his days they did not depart from following Him. The verse thus shows that when God's commandments reveal wrongdoing, the required response is to repent and return to God without compromising with evil.
Though greatly honored by the Lord, Josiah afterward became self-confident, did not honor God's word but went against it to follow his own way and failed to heed warning. God therefore could not shield him from the consequences, and he died in a battle in which he should have had no part.