Josiah's unmatched devotion does not revoke Jerusalem's judgment

Further removals and unmatched turning still stand under 'notwithstanding'

Josiah puts away the workers with familiar spirits, the wizards, the images, the idols, and all the abominations spied in Judah and Jerusalem, that he might perform the words of the law written in the book Hilkiah found. Like unto him was there no king before him that turned to the LORD with all his heart, and with all his soul, and with all his might, according to all the law of Moses; neither after him arose there any like him.

The praise is the book's highest. Then the hinge: notwithstanding, the LORD turned not from the fierceness of his great wrath, wherewith his anger was kindled against Judah because of all the provocations that Manasseh had provoked him withal. Exceptional Torah devotion does not reverse the sentence already spoken.

Jerusalem and the house are marked for removal, as Israel was

The LORD said, I will remove Judah also out of my sight, as I have removed Israel, and will cast off this city Jerusalem which I have chosen, and the house of which I said, My name shall be there. Chosen city and named house are not talismans. Manasseh's provocations, including the blood already charged, remain in force beside Josiah's fidelity.

This is the book's refusal of a mechanical reward. Reform is not a prosperity formula, and it is not a theocratic program a modern state can run in order to secure itself. Inherited consequences do not make later victims personally guilty for Manasseh's acts, and they do not make Jews in any later age the rightful target of that wrath. Josiah's generation is not a stand-in for 'the Jews' as a cursed people, and the church does not replace Judah by reading this sentence as a transfer of election.