Second Book of Kings 12

¹ <21 Jehoash was seven years old when he came to the throne.

² <1 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 <2 Jehoash did what is pleasing to Yahweh all his life, having been instructed by Jehoiada the priest.

⁴ <3 The high places, however, were not abolished, and the people still offered sacrifices and incense on the high places.

⁵ <4 Jehoash said to the priests, ‘All the money from the sacred dues brought to the Temple of Yahweh, the money from personal taxes, and the money given spontaneously to the Temple

⁶ <5 is to be accepted by the priests, from people of their acquaintance, and the priests are to carry out all repairs to the Temple as required’.

⁷ <6 Now in the twenty-third year of King Jehoash, the priests had done no repairs to the Temple;

⁸ <7 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 <8 The priests agreed to accept no money from the people and no longer to be responsible for repairs to the Temple.

¹⁰ <9 Jehoiada the priest procured a chest, bored a hole in the lid of it, and placed it beside the pillar, to the right as you enter the Temple of Yahweh; in it the priests who guarded the threshold put all the money that was given for the Temple of Yahweh.

¹¹ <10 Whenever they saw that there was a lot of money in the chest, the king’s secretary would come, and they would melt down and reckon the money then in the Temple of Yahweh.

¹² <11 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 <12 on masons and stonecutters, and on buying wood and dressed stone to be used for repairs to the Temple of Yahweh; in short, for all the costs of the Temple repairs.

¹⁴ <13 No silver basins, however, no knives, sprinkling bowls, trumpets, no gold or silver objects whatever were made for the Temple of Yahweh out of the money presented,

¹⁵ <14 for this was all given to the workmen who used it for repairing the Temple of Yahweh.

¹⁶ <15 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 dealings.

¹⁷ <16 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 <17 At that time Hazael king of Aram went to war against Gath, and captured it; he then prepared to attack Jerusalem.

¹⁹ <18 Jehoash king of Judah took all the sacred offerings dedicated by his ancestors, the kings of Judah, Jehoshaphat, Jehoram and Ahaziah, with those that he himself had dedicated, and all the gold that was to be found in the treasuries of the Temple of Yahweh and of the royal palace; he sent it all to Hazael king of Aram, who retired from Jerusalem.

²⁰ <19 The rest of the history of Jehoash, his entire career, is not all this recorded in the Book of the Annals of the Kings of Judah?

²¹ <20 His officers rebelled and hatched a plot; they struck Jehoash down at Beth-millo…

²² <21 Jozacar son of Shimeath and Jehozabad son of Shomer were the two who struck him down and killed him. They buried him with his ancestors in the Citadel of David; his son Amaziah succeeded him.