2 Kings
12
- In the seventh year of Jehu, Joash became
king, and he reigned in Jerusalem forty years. His mother's name was Zibiah;
she was from Beersheba.
- Joash did what was right in the eyes of
the LORD all the years Jehoiada the priest instructed him.
- The high places, however, were not removed;
the people continued to offer sacrifices and burn incense there.
- Joash said to the priests, "Collect
all the money that is brought as sacred offerings to the temple of the LORD
-- the money collected in the census, the money received from personal vows
and the money brought voluntarily to the temple.
- Let every priest receive the money from
one of the treasurers, and let it be used to repair whatever damage is found
in the temple."
- But by the twenty-third year of King Joash
the priests still had not repaired the temple.
- Therefore King Joash summoned Jehoiada the
priest and the other priests and asked them, "Why aren't you repairing
the damage done to the temple ? Take no more money from your treasurers, but
hand it over for repairing the temple."
- The priests agreed that they would not collect
any more money from the people and that they would not repair the temple themselves.
- 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 temple of the LORD. The priests who guarded the entrance put into
the chest all the money that was brought to the temple of the LORD.
- Whenever they saw that there was a large
amount of money in the chest, the royal secretary and the high priest came,
counted the money that had been brought into the temple of the LORD and put
it into bags.
- When the amount had been determined, they
gave the money to the men appointed to supervise the work on the temple. With
it they paid those who worked on the temple of the LORD -- the carpenters
and builders,
- the masons and stonecutters. They purchased
timber and dressed stone for the repair of the temple of the LORD, and met
all the other expenses of restoring the temple.
- The money brought into the temple was not
spent for making silver basins, wick trimmers, sprinkling bowls, trumpets
or any other articles of gold or silver for the temple of the LORD;
- it was paid to the workmen, who used it
to repair the temple.
- They did not require an accounting from
those to whom they gave the money to pay the workers, because they acted with
complete honesty.
- The money from the guilt offerings and sin
offerings was not brought into the temple of the LORD; it belonged to the
priests.
- About this time Hazael king of Aram went
up and attacked Gath and captured it. Then he turned to attack Jerusalem.
- 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 temple of the LORD and of the royal palace,
and he sent them to Hazael king of Aram, who then withdrew from Jerusalem.
- 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 ?
- His officials conspired against him and
assassinated him at Beth Millo, on the road down to Silla.
- 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.
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