2 Kings 12

¹ In the seventh year of Jehu, Joash became king, and he reigned forty years in Jerusalem. His mother's name was Zibiah of Beersheba.

² Joash did what was right in the eyes of the LORD all the years Jehoiada the priest instructed him.

³ The high places, however, were not removed; the people continued to offer sacrifices and burn incense there.

⁴ Joash said to the priests, "All the money brought as sacred offerings to the house of the LORD—the money collected in the census, the money received from personal vows, and the money brought voluntarily to the house of the LORD—

⁵ let the priests receive it, each from his regular donor, and let them repair whatever damage is found in the temple."

⁶ But by the twenty-third year of King Joash the priests had not repaired the temple.

⁷ Therefore King Joash summoned Jehoiada the priest and the other priests and asked them, "Why haven't you repaired the damage to the temple? Take no more money from your regular donors, but hand it over for repairing the temple."

⁸ The priests agreed that they would not collect any more money from the people and that they would not repair the temple themselves.

⁹ Jehoiada the priest took a chest and bored a hole in its lid. He placed it beside the altar, on the right side as one enters the house of the LORD. The priests who guarded the entrance put into the chest all the money that was brought to the house of the LORD.

¹⁰ Whenever they saw that there was a large amount of money in the chest, the royal secretary and the high priest would come and count the money that had been brought into the house of the LORD. Then they would put it into bags and keep count of it.

¹¹ After weighing the money, they would give it to the men appointed to supervise the work on the house of the LORD. These men paid the carpenters and builders who worked on the house of the LORD,

¹² and also the masons and stonecutters. They purchased timber and dressed stone for the repair of the house of the LORD, and met all the other expenses of restoring and repairing the temple.

¹³ The money brought into the temple was not spent on making silver basins, wick trimmers, sprinkling bowls, trumpets, or any other articles of gold or silver for the house of the LORD;

¹⁴ it was paid to the workers, who used it to repair the temple.

¹⁵ They did not require an accounting from those to whom they gave the money to pay the workers, because they acted with complete honesty.

¹⁶ The money from the guilt offerings and sin offerings was not brought into the house of the LORD; it belonged to the priests.

¹⁷ About this time Hazael king of Aram went up and attacked Gath and captured it. Then he turned to attack Jerusalem.

¹⁸ But Joash king of Judah took all the sacred objects dedicated by his fathers—Jehoshaphat, Jehoram, and Ahaziah, the kings of Judah—and the gifts he himself had dedicated and all the gold found in the treasuries of the house of the LORD and of the royal palace, and sent them to Hazael king of Aram, who then withdrew from Jerusalem.

¹⁹ As for the other events of the reign of Joash, and all he did, are they not written in the book of the annals of the kings of Judah?

²⁰ His officials conspired against him and attacked him at Beth-millo, on the road that goes down to Silla.

²¹ The officials who murdered him were Jozabad son of Shimeath and Jehozabad son of Shomer. He died and was buried with his fathers in the City of David. And Amaziah his son succeeded him as king.