2 Kings
Chapter 12
1 Jehoash became king in the seventh year of Jehu’s rule; he was king for forty years in Jerusalem. His mother was named Zibiah from Beersheba.
2 Jehoash did what was right in God’s eyes all the days Jehoiada the priest taught him.
3 But the high places were not removed: the people continued to offer sacrifices and burn incense there.
4 Jehoash told the priests, “All the dedicated money brought to God’s house, including everyone’s counted contribution, the set value of each person, and any money given willingly to God’s house,
5 Let the priests receive it from each person they know and use it to fix any damage found in the house.
6 In the twenty-third year of King Jehoash’s rule, the priests had not yet fixed the temple’s damage.
7 King Jehoash called Jehoiada the priest and the other priests, and asked them, “Why haven’t you fixed the broken parts of the temple? Don’t take any more money from your friends, but use it to repair the temple.”
8 The priests agreed to stop taking money from the people and not to fix the damages to the temple.
9 Priest Jehoiada took a box, made a hole in its top, and placed it by the altar on the right side as you enter God’s house. The priests guarding the door put all the money given to God’s house into the box.
10 When they saw a lot of money in the chest, the king’s writer and the high priest went to it, put the money in bags, and counted what was found in God’s house.
11 They gave the collected money to the workers who oversaw the temple of God, and they paid the carpenters and builders working on the temple of God.
12 To stoneworkers and stone cutters, and to buy wood and cut stone to fix the damages of God’s house, and for all spent on the house to repair it.
13 However, they did not make for God’s house any silver bowls, trimming scissors, basins, trumpets, gold items, or silver items with the money that was brought into God’s house.
14 But they gave it to the workers, who used it to fix God’s house.
15 Also, they did not check on the men who they gave the money to pay the workers, because they were honest.
16 The money from wrongdoings and from sin was not taken into God’s house: it belonged to the priests.
17 Then Hazael, the king of Syria, attacked and captured Gath, and then he planned to attack Jerusalem.
18 King Jehoash of Judah gathered all the holy items that his ancestors, Kings Jehoshaphat, Jehoram, and Ahaziah of Judah, had set apart for God, along with his own holy items and all the gold found in God’s temple and in the royal palace. He sent them to King Hazael of Syria, who then left Jerusalem.
19 The other things Joash did are written in the book of the history of Judah’s kings, aren’t they?
20 His servants got up, made a plot, and killed Joash at the house of Millo, near Silla.
21 Jozachar, Shimeath’s son, and Jehozabad, Shomer’s son, who were his servants, struck him, and he died. They buried him with his ancestors in David’s city, and his son Amaziah became king after him.