2 Kings 12

1Jehoash was seven years old when he began to reign.

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

3Jehoash did what was right in the eyes of Yahweh all his days, because Jehoiada the priest instructed him.

4However, the high places were not removed; the people still were sacrificing and burning incense on the high places.

5And Jehoash said to the priests, “All the money of the holy things that is brought into the house of Yahweh—the money from each man who is counted, the money of the valuation of persons, and all the money that comes up on a man’s heart to bring into the house of Yahweh—”

6Let the priests take for themselves, each man from his donor, and let them repair the damage of the house, wherever any damage is found there.

7It happened in the twenty-third year of King Jehoash that the priests had not repaired the damage to the house.

8So King Jehoash called Jehoiada the priest and the priests and said to them, “Why are you not repairing the damage of the house? Now then, do not take money from your donors, but give it for the repair of the house.”

9But the priests agreed not to take money from the people and not to repair the damage of the house.

10Then Jehoiada the priest took one chest, bored a hole in its lid, and set it beside the altar, on the right as a man enters the house of Yahweh; and the priests who guarded the threshold put there all the silver that was brought into the house of Yahweh.

11And whenever they saw that there was much silver in the chest, the king’s scribe and the high priest came up and tied up and counted the silver found in the house of the LORD.

12And they gave the weighed-out silver into the hand of the workmen who were appointed over the house of Yahweh, and they paid it out to the carpenters and the builders who were working on the house of Yahweh.

13and for the masons, and for the stonecutters, and to buy timber and quarried stone to repair the damage of the house of Yahweh, and for all that is spent on the house to repair it.

14However, from the money brought into the house of Yahweh there were not made for the house of Yahweh silver basins, snuffers, sprinkling bowls, trumpets, or any vessel of gold or vessel of silver.

15for they gave it to those doing the work, and with it they repaired the house of Yahweh.

16But they did not reckon with the men into whose hand they gave the money to give to those doing the work, for they acted faithfully.

17Money from a guilt offering and money from sin offerings was not to be brought into the house of Yahweh; it belonged to the priests.

18Then Hazael king of Aram went up and fought against Gath and captured it, and Hazael set his face to go up against Jerusalem.

19Then Jehoash king of Judah took all the holy things that Jehoshaphat, Jehoram, and Ahaziah, his fathers, the kings of Judah, had dedicated, along with his own holy things, and all the gold found in the treasuries of the house of Yahweh and of the king’s house, and sent it to Hazael king of Aram; so he went up away from Jerusalem.

20The 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?

21And his servants rose up and conspired a conspiracy, and they struck down Joash at Beth-millo, on the descent to Silla.

22And Jozabad son of Shimeath and Jehozabad son of Shomer, his servants, struck him down, and he died. And they buried him with his fathers in the city of David, and Amaziah his son reigned in his place.