2 Kings 12

1 Joash was seven years old when he began to reign. [a] 2 In the seventh year of Jehu, Joash began to reign, and he reigned forty years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Abijah, from Beersheba. [b] 3 And Joash did what was right in the sight of the Lord all the days that Jehoiada the priest instructed him. [c] 4 Only the high places were not taken away; the people still sacrificed there and burned incense on the high places.

5 And Joash said to the priests, “All the money of the holy things that is brought into the house of the Lord — the assessment money, each man’s own assessment that he brings, and all the money that a man takes it into his heart to bring into the house of the Lord — [d] 6 let the priests take it for themselves, each from his own dealings; and they are to make good the damage of the house, everywhere any damage is found.” [e]

7 And in the twenty-third year of king Joash the priests had still not made good the damage of the house. 8 And king Joash called Jehoiada the priest and the other priests and said to them, “Why have you not made good the damage of the house? Now then, take no more money from your dealings — you are to hand it over for the damage of the house.” 9 And the priests agreed to take no more money from the people and not to make good the damage of the house.

10 And Jehoiada the priest took a chest and bored a hole in its lid and set it beside the altar, in the house of a man of the house of the Lord; and the priests who kept the doorway put into it all the money that was found in the house of the Lord. [f] 11 And when they saw that there was much money in the chest, the king’s scribe and the great priest went up, and they tied up the money that was found in the house of the Lord and counted it. [g]

12 And they gave the money that had been made ready into the hands of the men who did the work, the overseers of the house of the Lord, and these paid it out to the carpenters and the builders who worked on the house of the Lord, 13 and to the wall-builders and the stonecutters, to buy timber and cut stone to hold the damage of the house of the Lord in check — for everything that was spent on the house to make it strong. 14 Only, there were to be made for the house of the Lord no silver doors, no nails, no bowls and no trumpets, no vessel of gold and no vessel of silver, out of the money that was brought into the house of the Lord; [h] 15 for they gave it to the men who did the work, and with it they made the house of the Lord strong. 16 And they kept no accounts with the men into whose hands they gave the money to pay the men who did the work, because those men acted faithfully. 17 Money for sin and money for wrongdoing — whatever of it was brought into the house of the Lord — went to the priests. [i]

18 Then Hazael king of Aram went up and fought against Gath and took it. And Hazael set his face to go up against Jerusalem. [j] 19 And Joash king of Judah took all the holy things that Jehoshaphat and Joram and Ahaziah his fathers, kings of Judah, had set apart, and his own holy things, and all the gold that was found in the treasuries of the house of the Lord and of the king’s house, and he sent them to Hazael king of Aram; and he went away from Jerusalem.

20 And the rest of the acts of Joash, and everything he did — look, are they not written in the book of the daily record of the kings of Judah? 21 And his servants rose up and bound themselves together in a conspiracy, and they struck Joash down in the house of Mallo, which is in Gaalla. [k] 22 Jezichar son of Jemuath and Jezebuth son of Shomer, his servants, struck him, and he died. And they buried him with his fathers in the city of David, and Amaziah his son reigned in his place. [l]