¹In the seventh year of Jehu, Jehoash1 began to reign, and he reigned forty years in Jerusalem. His mother's name was Zibiah of Beersheba. ²And Jehoash did what was right in the eyes of the Lord all his days, because Jehoiada the priest instructed him. ³Nevertheless, rthe high places were not taken away; the people continued to sacrifice and make offerings on the high places.

Jehoash Repairs the Temple

⁴Jehoash said to the priests, “All the money of the holy things sthat is brought into the house of the Lord, the money for which each man is assessed—the money from the assessment of persons—and tthe money that a man's heart prompts him to bring into the house of the Lord, ⁵let the priests take, each from his donor, and let them repair the house wherever any need of repairs is discovered.” ⁶But by the twenty-third year of King Jehoash, the priests had made no repairs on the house. ⁷Therefore King Jehoash summoned Jehoiada the priest and the other priests and said to them, “Why are you not repairing the house? Now therefore take no more money from your donors, but hand it over for the repair of the house.” ⁸So the priests agreed that they should take no more money from the people, and that they should not repair the house.

⁹Then Jehoiada the priest took ua chest and bored a hole in the lid of it and set it beside the altar on the right side as one entered the house of the Lord. And the priests who guarded the threshold put in it all the money that was brought into the house of the Lord. ¹⁰And whenever they saw that there was much money in the chest, the king's secretary and the high priest came up and they bagged and counted vthe money that was found in the house of the Lord. ¹¹Then they would give the money that was weighed out into the hands of the workmen who had the oversight of the house of the Lord. And they paid it out to the carpenters and the builders who worked on the house of the Lord, ¹²and wto the masons and the stonecutters, as well as to buy timber and quarried stone for making repairs on the house of the Lord, and for any outlay for the repairs of the house. ¹³xBut there were not made for the house of the Lord ybasins of silver, snuffers, bowls, trumpets, or any vessels of gold, or of silver, from the money that was brought into the house of the Lord, ¹⁴for that was given to the workmen who were repairing the house of the Lord with it. ¹⁵And zthey did not ask for an accounting from the men into whose hand they delivered the money to pay out to the workmen, for they dealt honestly. ¹⁶The money from athe guilt offerings and the money from the bsin offerings was not brought into the house of the Lord; cit belonged to the priests.

¹⁷At that time dHazael king of Syria went up and fought against Gath and took it. But when Hazael set his face eto go up against Jerusalem, ¹⁸Jehoash king of Judah ftook all the sacred gifts that Jehoshaphat and Jehoram and Ahaziah his fathers, the kings of Judah, had dedicated, gand his own sacred gifts, and all the gold that was found in the treasuries of the house of the Lord and of the king's house, and sent these to Hazael king of Syria. Then Hazael went away from Jerusalem.

The Death of Joash

¹⁹Now 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? ²⁰hHis servants arose and made a conspiracy iand struck down Joash in the house of jMillo, on the way that goes down to Silla. ²¹It was kJozacar the son of Shimeath and Jehozabad the son of kShomer, his servants, who struck him down, so that he died. And they buried him with his fathers in the city of David, land Amaziah his son reigned in his place.