2 Kings 12

Revised Geneva Translation

12 In the seventh year of Jehu, Jehoash began to reign and reigned for forty years in Jerusalem. And his mother’s name was Zibiah of Beersheba.

² And Jehoash did that which was good in the sight of the LORD all his time that Jehoiada the Priest taught him.

³ But the high places were not taken away; for the people still offered and burnt incense in the high places.

⁴ And Jehoash said to the priests, “All the silver of dedicated things that is brought to the House of the LORD — the money of those counted, the money that each man is assessed, all the money that one offers willingly and brings into the House of the LORD —

⁵ “let the priests take it themselves, every man from his acquaintances. And they shall repair the broken places of the House, wherever any decay is found.”

⁶ Yet, by the twenty-third year of King Jehoash, the priests had still not mended that which had decayed in the Temple.

⁷ Then King Jehoash called for Jehoiada the Priest and the other priests, and said to them, “Why have you not repaired the ruins of the Temple? Now, therefore, receive no more money from your acquaintances unless you deliver it to repair the ruins of the Temple.”

⁸ So the priests consented to neither receive any more money from the people nor to repair the decayed places of the Temple.

⁹ Then, Jehoiada the Priest took a chest and bored a hole in the lid of it, and set it beside the Altar, on the right side, as every man comes into the Temple of the LORD. And the priests who kept the door put in all the money that was brought into the House of the LORD.

¹⁰ And when they saw there was much money in the chest, the king’s secretary and the High Priest came up and put it in bags, after they had counted all the money that had been found in the House of the LORD.

¹¹ And they gave the money, having been measured, into the hands of those who undertook the work, and who had oversight of the House of the LORD. And they paid it out to the carpenters and builders who worked upon the House of the LORD,

¹² and to the masons and stonecutters, and to buy timber and hewn stone, to repair what had decayed in the House of the LORD, and for all that which had been laid out for the reparation of the Temple.

¹³ However, no bowls of silver were made for the House of the LORD — or instruments of music, basins, trumpets, or any vessels of gold, or vessels of silver — from the money that was brought into the House of the LORD.

¹⁴ But they gave it to the workmen, who repaired the House of the LORD with it.

¹⁵ Moreover, they did not require an accounting from the men into whose hands they delivered that money, to be bestowed on workmen. For they dealt faithfully.

¹⁶ The money of the Trespass Offering, and the money of the Sin Offerings, was not brought into the House of the LORD. It was the priests’.

¹⁷ Then Hazael, king of Aram, came up and fought against Gath, and took it. And Hazael set his face to go up to Jerusalem.

¹⁸ And Jehoash, king of Judah, took all the hallowed things that Jehoshaphat and Jehoram and Ahaziah, his fathers, kings of Judah, had dedicated, and that he himself had dedicated, and all the gold that was found in the treasures of the House of the LORD, and in the king’s house, and sent it to Hazael, king of Aram. And he departed from Jerusalem.

¹⁹ Concerning 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?

²⁰ And his servants arose and worked treason, and killed Joash in the house of Millo, when he came down to Silla.

²¹ Jozachar, the son of Shimeath, and Jehozabad, the son of Shomer, his servants, 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.