nd Kings _Chapter 12

In the seventh year of Jehu, Joash began to reign and reigned in Jerusalem for forty years. His mother’s name is Zebiah, from Beersheba.

When Jehoiada the priest taught him, Joash did what was right in the eyes of the Lord.

However, the mounds have not been abolished yet, and the people are still offering sacrifices and burning incense there.

Joash said to the priests, ‘All the silver that is worth the value of the holy things that are brought to the temple of the Lord, or the value that each person should bear, or the silver that is willingly brought to the temple of the Lord,’,

Take it from those you know and repair all the damage to the temple.

Unfortunately, in the twenty third year of King Joash’s reign, the priests still had not repaired the damage to the temple.

So King Joash summoned the high priest Jehoiada and all the priests, and said to them, Why don’t you repair the damage to the temple? From now on, do not collect any more money from those you know; instead, hand over what you have collected and repair the damage to the temple.

The priests promised not to receive any more money from the people, nor to repair the damage to the temple.

The priest Jehoiada took a cabinet, drilled a hole in the cover of the cabinet, and placed it next to the altar on the right side of the temple of the Lord. The gatekeeper priest threw all the silver brought to the temple of the Lord into the ark.

When they saw that there was a lot of silver in the ark, they called the king’s secretary and the high priest up and counted the amount of silver in the temple of the Lord.

Give the silver that has been leveled to the overseer, who is responsible for the work in the temple of the Lord. They handed over the silver to the carpenters and workers who repaired the temple of the Lord,

And bricklayers and stonemasons, as well as buying wood and chiseled stones, to repair the destruction of the temple of the Lord, and to repair all the uses of the temple.

But the silver that was brought to the temple of the Lord was not used to make silver cups, wax scissors, bowls, trumpets, or any other gold or silver vessels in the temple of the Lord,

But he gave the silver to the overseers to repair the temple of the Lord.

And hand over the silver to the workers and do not settle accounts with them, because they are honest in their work.

But the money from the guilt offering and the sin offering was not brought to the temple of the Lord, but it belonged to the priests.

At that time, King Hazael of Aram came up to attack Gath and captured it. He decided to come up and attack Jerusalem.

King Joash of Judah gave to Hazael the king of Aram all the holy things that his ancestors, King Jehoshaphat, King Joram, and King Ahaziah had consecrated, as well as all the gold from the temple of the Lord and the royal treasury. Hazael will not come up to Jerusalem.

And all the other things that Joash did, and all that he did, are written in the book of the kings of Judah.

Joash’s servants rebelled and killed him at the palace of Miro in Lower Zillah.

The servants who killed him were Jozachar son of Shimeab and Jozabad son of Shomer. They buried him in the burial ground of his ancestors in the city of David. His son Amaziah succeeded him as king.