[1] In the seventh year of Jehu Jeho'ash began to reign, and he reigned
forty years in Jerusalem. His mother's name was Zib'iah of Beer-sheba. [2]
And Jeho'ash did what was right in the eyes of the LORD all his days,
because Jehoi'ada the priest instructed him. [3] Nevertheless the high
places were not taken away; the people continued to sacrifice and burn
incense on the high places. [4] Jeho'ash said to the priests, "All the
money of the holy things which is brought into the house of the LORD, the
money for which each man is assessed--the money from the assessment of
persons--and the money which a man's heart prompts him to bring into the
house of the LORD, [5] let the priests take, each from his acquaintance;
and let them repair the house wherever any need of repairs is discovered."
[6] But by the twenty-third year of King Jeho'ash the priests had made no
repairs on the house. [7] Therefore King Jeho'ash summoned Jehoi'ada 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 acquaintances, but
hand it over for the repair of the house." [8] So the priests agreed that
they should take no more money from the people, and that they should not
repair the house. [9] Then Jehoi'ada the priest took a 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. [10]
And whenever they saw that there was much money in the chest, the king's
secretary and the high priest came up and they counted and tied up in bags
the money that was found in the house of the LORD. [11] Then 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 upon the house of the LORD, [12] and
to 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 upon
the repairs of the house. [13] But there were not made for the house of the
LORD basins 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,
[14] for that was given to the workmen who were repairing the house of the
LORD with it. [15] And they did not ask an accounting from the men into
whose hand they delivered the money to pay out to the workmen, for they
dealt honestly. [16] The money from the guilt offerings and the money from
the sin offerings was not brought into the house of the LORD; it belonged
to the priests. [17] At that time Haz'ael king of Syria went up and fought
against Gath, and took it. But when Haz'ael set his face to go up against
Jerusalem, [18] Jeho'ash king of Judah took all the votive gifts that
Jehosh'aphat and Jeho'ram and Ahazi'ah, his fathers, the kings of Judah,
had dedicated, and his own votive 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 Haz'ael king of Syria. Then Haz'ael went away from Jerusalem. [19]
Now the rest of the acts of Jo'ash, and all that he did, are they not
written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah? [20] His
servants arose and made a conspiracy, and slew Jo'ash in the house of
Millo, on the way that goes down to Silla. [21] It was Jo'zacar the son of
Shim'e-ath and Jeho'zabad the son of Shomer, his servants, who struck him
down, so that he died. And they buried him with his fathers in the city of
David, and Amazi'ah his son reigned in his stead.
