Joash Repairs the Temple
In the seventh year of Jehu, Jehoash became king; and forty years he reigned in Jerusalem. And his mother’s name was Zibiah, from Beersheba.
And Jehoash did the upright in the eyes of the LORD all his days, because Jehoiada the priest instructed him.
Only, the high places were not removed; the people were still sacrificing and burning incense at the high places.
And Jehoash said to the priests: “All the silver of the holy things that is brought into the house of the LORD — the silver of each man who passes the count, the silver of persons at each one’s valuation, all the silver that comes up in a man’s heart to bring into the house of the LORD —
let the priests take it for themselves, each from his own acquaintance; and they shall repair the breach of the house, wherever a breach is found.”
And it was in the twenty-third year of King Jehoash that the priests had not repaired the breach of the house.
And King Jehoash called Jehoiada the priest and the priests, and said to them: “Why are you not repairing the breach of the house? Now then, take no silver from your acquaintances — for you are to give it for the breach of the house.”
And the priests agreed to take no silver from the people, and not to repair the breach of the house.
And Jehoiada the priest took a chest and bored a hole in its lid, and set it beside the altar, on the right as one comes into the house of the LORD; and the priests who kept the threshold would put there all the silver brought into the house of the LORD.
And it was, when they saw that there was much silver in the chest, that the scribe of the king and the high priest came up, and they bound it up and counted the silver found in the house of the LORD.
And they would give the silver, once measured out, into the hands of the doers of the work who were appointed over the house of the LORD; and they paid it out to the craftsmen in wood and to the builders working on the house of the LORD,
and to the masons and the hewers of stone, and to buy timber and quarried stone to repair the breach of the house of the LORD — and for all that went out for the house, to repair it.
Only, there were not made for the house of the LORD basins of silver, snuffers, bowls, trumpets — any vessel of gold or vessel of silver — from the silver brought into the house of the LORD;
for they would give it to the doers of the work, and with it they repaired the house of the LORD.
And they did not keep accounts with the men into whose hand they gave the silver to give to the doers of the work — for they were dealing in faithfulness.
Silver of guilt offerings and silver of sin offerings was not brought into the house of the LORD; it belonged to the priests.
The Death of Joash
Then Hazael, king of Aram, went up and fought against Gath and captured it; and Hazael set his face to go up against Jerusalem.
And Jehoash, king of Judah, took all the holy things that Jehoshaphat and Jehoram and Ahaziah, his fathers, the kings of Judah, had consecrated, and his own holy things, and all the gold found in the treasuries of the house of the LORD and the house of the king, and sent them to Hazael, king of Aram; and he went up away from Jerusalem.
And 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?
And his servants rose and conspired a conspiracy, and struck down Joash at Beth-millo, on the way down to Silla.
And Jozacar the son of Shimeath and Jehozabad the 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 became king in his place.