2 Kings - The Old Testament

¹ Jehoash was seven years old when he came to the throne.

² Jehoash became king in the seventh year of Jehu, and reigned for forty years in Jerusalem. His mother's name was Zibiah of Beersheba.

³ All his life Jehoash did what Yahweh regards as right, having been instructed by Jehoiada the priest.

⁴ The high places, however, were not abolished, and the people still offered sacrifices and incense on the high places.

⁵ Jehoash said to the priests, 'All the money from the sacred revenues brought to the Temple of Yahweh, the money from personal taxes, and all the money voluntarily offered to the Temple-

⁶ the priests are to receive this individually from people of their acquaintance and will carry out all the repairs to the Temple which need to be made.'

⁷ Now in the twenty-third year of King Jehoash the priests had done no repairs to the Temple;

⁸ so King Jehoash summoned Jehoiada the priest and the other priests. 'Why are you not repairing the Temple?' he asked. 'You are no longer to accept money from people of your acquaintance but are to hand it over for the Temple repairs.'

⁹ The priests agreed to accept no money from the people and no longer to be responsible for repairs to the Temple.

¹⁰ Jehoiada the priest took a chest, bored a hole in the lid and placed it beside the pillar, to the right of the entry to the Temple of Yahweh; in it the priests who guarded the threshold put all the money which was given for the Temple of Yahweh.

¹¹ Whenever they saw that there was a great deal of money in the chest, the king's secretary would come, and they would empty it out and reckon the money then in the Temple of Yahweh.

¹² Once checked, they paid this money over to the masters of works attached to the Temple of Yahweh, and these in turn spent it on carpenters and builders working on the Temple of Yahweh,

¹³ on masons and stonecutters, and on buying timber and dressed stone to be used for repairs to the Temple of Yahweh; in short, for all the costs of the Temple repairs.

¹⁴ But no silver basins, knives, sprinkling bowls, trumpets or gold or silver objects were made for the Temple of Yahweh out of the money presented,

¹⁵ which was all given to the masters of works for repairing the Temple of Yahweh.

¹⁶ No accounts were kept with the men to whom the money was paid over to be spent on the workmen, since they were honest in their work.

¹⁷ Money offered in expiation of an offence or of a sin was not given to the Temple of Yahweh; that was for the priests.

¹⁸ At that time Hazael king of Aram went to war against Gath, and captured it; he then prepared to attack Jerusalem.

¹⁹ Jehoash king of Judah took all the sacred offerings dedicated by his ancestors, the kings of Judah, Jehoshaphat, Jehoram and Ahaziah, with those which he himself had dedicated, and all the gold which was to be found in the treasuries of the Temple of Yahweh and of the palace; he sen it all to Hazael king of Aram, who retired from Jerusalem.

²⁰ The rest of the history of Joash, his entire career, is this not recorded in the Book of the Annals of the Kings of Judah?

²¹ His own retainers rebelled and hatched a plot; they murdered Joash in the palace of the Millo . . .

²² Jozacar son of Shimeath and Jehozabad son of Shomer were the retainers who struck the blows from which he died. He was buried with his ancestors in the City of David; his son Amaziah succeeded him.