2 Chronicles 34:9
And when they came to Hilkiah the high priest, they delivered the money that was brought into the house of God, which the Levites that kept the doors had gathered of the hand of Manasseh and Ephraim, and of all the remnant of Israel, and of all Judah and Benjamin; and they returned to Jerusalem.
The gathering and handing over of temple funds took place in the eighteenth year of Josiah's reign. By that time silent yet powerful influences at work through the prophets' messages concerning the coming Babylonian captivity had prepared the way for reformation. That reformation itself came about in an unexpected manner, through the discovery and earnest study of a portion of Scripture that had long been misplaced and lost. The delivering of the collected money accompanied the bringing of the law before the people in a deep work of repentance and return to God, the very precedent John looked for in his own work. Through this reform movement the threatened judgments upon the nation were averted for a season.