2 Kings 12

Lexham English Bible

Jehoash/Joash Reigns in Judah

12 In the seventh year of Jehu, Jehoash became king. He reigned in Jerusalem forty years, and the name of his mother was Zibiah from Beersheba. ² Jehoash did right in the eyes of Yahweh all of his days, because Jehoiada the priest instructed him. ³ Only the high places were not removed; the people were still making sacrifices and offering incense on the high places.

Temple Repairs Planned

⁴ Jehoash said to the priests, “All of the money for the sacred things that is brought to the temple of Yahweh, the money taxed at its proper value for each person^[a] and all of the money which comes upon the heart of a man to bring to the temple of Yahweh, ⁵ let the priests take for themselves, each from his treasurers, and let them repair the breach of the temple for every place where damage is found.”

⁶ It happened in the twenty-third year of King Jehoash that the priests had not repaired the damage in the temple. ⁷ So King Jehoash summoned Jehoiada the priest and the priests, and he said to them, “Why are you not repairing the damage in the temple? Now, you shall not take money from your treasurers for the damage in the temple. You must provide it.” ⁸ So the priests agreed not to take money from the people and not to repair the damage to the temple.

⁹ Then Jehoiada the priest took a certain chest and bored a hole in its lid, and he put it beside the altar to the right as a man enters into the temple of Yahweh; then the priests who were keepers of the threshold would put there all of the money brought into the temple. ¹⁰ It happened that when they saw a great deal of money in the chest, the secretary of the king and the high priest would come up, put the money in bags, then count the money found in the temple of Yahweh. ¹¹ They placed the money, which was weighed out, into the hands of the workers who were appointed over the temple of Yahweh, and they paid it to the skilled craftsmen of wood and to the builders working on the temple of Yahweh ¹² and to the masons and the stonecutters, to buy timber and stones for hewing, in order to repair the damage of the temple of Yahweh, and for all who went to the temple to repair it. ¹³ Only, for the temple of Yahweh, there were not any silver basins, snuffers, bowls for drinking wine, trumpets, or any vessel of gold or silver from the money being brought to the temple of Yahweh. ¹⁴ For they gave that to all the workers, and they repaired the temple^[b] of Yahweh with it. ¹⁵ They did not have to settle accounts with the men into whose hands they placed the money to give to the workers, for they were dealing honestly. ¹⁶ The money of the guilt offering and the money of the sin offering was not brought into the temple^[c] of Yahweh, but were each for the priests.

Hazael Threatens Judah

¹⁷ At that time, Hazael king of Aram went up and fought against Gath and captured it; then Hazael set his face to go up against Jerusalem. ¹⁸ Jehoash king of Judah took all of the holy objects that Jehoshaphat, Joram, and Ahaziah his ancestors,^[d] the kings of Judah, had devoted, and all his holy objects and all of the gold found in the treasuries of the temple of Yahweh, and in the palace of the king, and he sent them to Hazael king of Aram, so that he went up from Jerusalem.

¹⁹ Now the remainder of the acts of Joash and all that he did, are they not written in the scroll of the events of the days of the kings of Judah? ²⁰ Then his servants arose and conspired and killed Joash in the house of the Millo as he was going down toward Silla. ²¹ Jozabad^[e] the son of Shimeath and Jehozabad the son of Shomer, his servants, struck him and killed him, so they buried him with his ancestors^[f] in the city of David. Then Amaziah his son became king in his place.