1 Joash began to rule over Judah in the seventh year of King Jehu’s reign in Israel. He reigned in Jerusalem forty years. His mother was Zibiah from Beersheba.
4One day King Joash said to the priests, “Collect all the money brought as a sacred offering to the LORD’s Temple, whether it is a regular assessment, a payment of vows, or a voluntary gift.
7So King Joash called for Jehoiada and the other priests and asked them, “Why haven’t you repaired the Temple? Don’t use any more money for your own needs. From now on, it must all be spent on Temple repairs.”
9Then Jehoiada the priest bored a hole in the lid of a large chest and set it on the right-hand side of the altar at the entrance of the Temple of the LORD. The priests guarding the entrance put all of the people’s contributions into the chest.
10Whenever the chest became full, the court secretary and the high priest counted the money that had been brought to the LORD’s Temple and put it into bags.
12the masons, and the stonecutters. They also used the money to buy the timber and the finished stone needed for repairing the LORD’s Temple, and they paid any other expenses related to the Temple’s restoration.
13The money brought to the Temple was not used for making silver bowls, lamp snuffers, basins, trumpets, or other articles of gold or silver for the Temple of the LORD.
16However, the money that was contributed for guilt offerings and sin offerings was not brought into the LORD’s Temple. It was given to the priests for their own use. The End of Joash’s Reign
18King Joash collected all the sacred objects that Jehoshaphat, Jehoram, and Ahaziah, the previous kings of Judah, had dedicated, along with what he himself had dedicated. He sent them all to Hazael, along with all the gold in the treasuries of the LORD’s Temple and the royal palace. So Hazael called off his attack on Jerusalem.
21The assassins were Jozacar son of Shimeath and Jehozabad son of Shomer—both trusted advisers. Joash was buried with his ancestors in the City of David. Then his son Amaziah became the next king.
