1In the seventh year of Jehu, Jehoash began to reign, and he reigned forty years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Zibiah of Beersheba.
2Jehoash did what was right in the eyes of Yahweh all his days, because Jehoiada the priest instructed him.
3Only the high places were not removed; the people still sacrificed and burned incense on the high places.
4Jehoash said to the priests, “All the money of the holy things that is brought into the house of Yahweh—the money that passes current, the money each person is assessed for persons, and all the money that comes upon a person’s heart to bring into the house of Yahweh—
5let the priests take it for themselves, each from his acquaintance, and let them repair the breaches of the house, wherever any breach is found there.”
6But it happened, in the twenty-third year of King Jehoash, that the priests had not repaired the breaches of the house.
7So King Jehoash called for Jehoiada the priest and the other priests and said to them, “Why are you not repairing the breaches of the house? Now then, do not take money from your acquaintances, but hand it over for the breaches of the house.”
8And the priests agreed neither to take money from the people nor to repair the breaches of the house.
9Then Jehoiada the priest took a chest and bored a hole in its lid, and he set it beside the altar, on the right side as one enters the house of Yahweh; and the priests who guarded the threshold put into it all the money brought into the house of Yahweh.
10And it happened, when they saw that there was much money in the chest, that the king’s scribe and the high priest came up, and they bagged and counted the money that was found in the house of Yahweh.
11Then they gave the money that was weighed out into the hands of those doing the work, who were appointed over the house of Yahweh, and they paid it out to the carpenters and builders who worked on the house of Yahweh,
12and to the masons and stonecutters, and for buying timber and quarried stone to repair the breaches of the house of Yahweh, and for all that was expended on the house for its repair.
13However, there were not made for the house of Yahweh silver basins, snuffers, bowls, trumpets, or any vessel of gold or vessel of silver, out of the money brought into the house of Yahweh;
14for it was given to those doing the work, and with it they repaired the house of Yahweh.
15And no accounting was required of the men into whose hands they gave the money to pay to those doing the work, because they were acting in good faith.
16The money from guilt offerings and the money from sin offerings was not brought into the house of Yahweh; it belonged to the priests.
17Then Hazael king of Aram went up and fought against Gath and captured it; and Hazael set his face to go up against Jerusalem.
18So Jehoash king of Judah took all the holy things that Jehoshaphat, Jehoram, and Ahaziah his fathers, the kings of Judah, had dedicated, and his own holy things, and all the gold that was found in the treasuries of the house of Yahweh and of the king’s house, and sent it to Hazael king of Aram; and he withdrew from Jerusalem.
19Now the rest of the acts of Joash, and all that he did, are they not written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah?
20His servants arose and made a conspiracy, and they struck down Joash at Beth-millo, on the way that goes down to Silla.
21It was Jozabad son of Shimeath and Jehozabad son of Shomer, his servants, who struck him, and he died. And they buried him with his fathers in the City of David, and Amaziah his son reigned in his place.
Open in the interactive reader →