2 Chronicles
Chapter 24
1 Joash became king at seven and ruled for forty years in Jerusalem. His mother, Zibiah, was from Beersheba.
2 Joash did what was right in God’s eyes all the time Jehoiada the priest was alive.
3 Jehoiada married two women and they had sons and daughters together.
4 After that, Joash decided to fix God’s house.
5 He brought the priests and Levites together and told them, “Go to the towns of Judah and collect money from all Israel every year to fix God’s house. Make sure you do it quickly.” But the Levites did not hurry.
6 The king asked Jehoiada the leader, “Why haven’t you made the Levites collect taxes from Judah and Jerusalem as Moses, God’s servant, and Israel’s assembly commanded for the testimony tent?”
7 Athaliah’s sons, who were evil, destroyed God’s house and gave all the holy items from God’s house to Baalim.
8 By the king’s order, they made a box and placed it outside the gate of God’s house.
9 They announced in Judah and Jerusalem that everyone should bring to God the offerings that Moses, God’s servant, commanded Israel to give in the wilderness.
10 All the leaders and people were happy, gave, and put into the chest until they finished.
11 When the box was delivered to the king’s office by the Levites and they noticed a lot of money inside, the king’s writer and the high priest’s official would empty the box, take it, and return it to its spot. They did this every day and collected a great deal of money.
12 The king and Jehoiada paid workers to serve in God’s house, and they hired builders and woodworkers to fix it. They also paid those who worked with iron and bronze to repair God’s house.
13 The workers did their job, completed the work, arranged God’s house as it should be, and made it strong.
14 When they were done, they gave the leftover money to the king and Jehoiada, who used it to make items for God’s house – items for service and sacrifices, along with bowls, and gold and silver things. They presented burnt sacrifices in God’s house all the time Jehoiada lived.
15 Jehoiada grew very old and died when he lived a long life; he was one hundred and thirty years old at his death.
16 They buried him in the city of David with the kings because he did good things for Israel, for God, and for his own family.
17 After Jehoiada died, the leaders of Judah bowed before the king, and the king listened to them.
18 They left their ancestors’ God’s house and worshiped idols and sacred trees; because of this sin, anger came upon Judah and Jerusalem.
19 God sent messengers to the people to bring them back to Him; they spoke out against the people’s ways, but the people would not listen.
20 God’s Spirit came over Zechariah, son of Jehoiada the priest. While standing before the people, he said, “God asks why do you disobey God’s commands, so that you can’t succeed? You have abandoned God, so he has abandoned you.”
21 They plotted against him and threw stones at him, following the king’s orders, in the courtyard of God’s house.
22 King Joash forgot the good things Jehoiada, his father, did for him and killed Jehoiada’s son. As he was dying, he said, “God will see this and make you pay.”
23 At the end of the year, Syria’s army attacked. They came to Judah and Jerusalem, killed all the leaders, and sent their valuables to the king of Damascus.
24 The Syrian army attacked with just a few soldiers, but God gave them victory over a much larger group because they had abandoned the God of their ancestors. So they punished Joash.
25 After they left him because he was very sick, his own servants plotted against him because he had killed the sons of priest Jehoiada. They killed him in his bed, and he died. They buried him in the city of David, but not in the kings’ tombs.
26 These are the ones who plotted against him: Zabad, son of Shimeath from Ammon, and Jehozabad, son of Shimrith from Moab.
27 About his sons, the heavy tasks given to him, and the fixing of God’s house, you can read in the book of kings’ history. And his son Amaziah became king after him.