2 Kings 12

1 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.

When Jehu had been ruling Israel for almost seven years, Joash became the king of Judah. He ruled in Jerusalem for 40 years. His mother was Zibiah, from Beersheba [city].

2 And Joash did what was right in the eyes of the LORD all the days he was instructed by Jehoiada the priest.

All his life, he did what pleased Yahweh, because Jehoiada the priest instructed/taught him.

3 Nevertheless, the high places were not removed; the people continued sacrificing and burning incense there.

But the places where the people worshiped [Yahweh] on the tops of hills were not destroyed, and they continued to offer sacrifices and burn incense at those places, [instead of at the place that God had chosen for them in Jerusalem].

4 Then Joash said to the priests, “Collect all the money brought as sacred gifts into the house of the LORD—the census money, the money from vows, and the money brought voluntarily into the house of the LORD.

Joash said to the priests, “You must take all the money which the people contribute, both the money they are required to give and the money that they themselves decide to give, as sacred offerings to buy things for the temple.

5 Let every priest receive it from his constituency, and let it be used to repair any damage found in the temple.”

Each priest must take the money from people who know him (OR, from one of the treasurers), and he must use that money to repair the temple whenever he sees that there is something that needs to be repaired.”

6 By the twenty-third year of the reign of Joash, however, the priests had not yet repaired the damage to the temple.

But after Joash had been ruling for almost twenty-three years, the priests still had not repaired anything in the temple.

7 So King Joash called Jehoiada and the other priests and said, “Why have you not repaired the damage to the temple? Now, therefore, take no more money from your constituency, but hand it over for the repair of the temple.”

So Joash summoned Jehoiada and the other priests and said to them, “(Why are you not repairing things in the temple?/You should have been repairing things in the temple!) [RHQ] From now on, you must not keep the money that you receive from people who know you (OR, the treasurers). You must give it to the people who will be repairing things in the temple!”

8 So the priests agreed that they would not receive money from the people and that they would not repair the temple themselves.

The priests agreed to do that, and they also agreed that they themselves would not do the repair work.

9 Then Jehoiada the priest took a chest, bored a hole in its lid, and set it beside the altar on the right side as one enters the house of the LORD. There the priests who guarded the threshold put all the money brought into the house of the LORD.

Then Jehoiada took a chest and bored a hole in the lid. He placed it alongside the altar [for burning incense/sacrifices] that was on the right as anyone enters the temple. The priests who guarded the entrance to the temple put in the box the money that was brought to the temple.

10 Whenever they saw that there was a large amount of money in the chest, the royal scribe and the high priest would go up, count the money brought into the house of the LORD, and tie it up in bags.

Whenever they saw that there was a lot of money in the chest, the king’s secretary and the Supreme Priest would come and count the money. Then they would put it in bags and tie the bags shut.

11 Then they would put the counted money into the hands of those who supervised the work on the house of the LORD, who in turn would pay those doing the work—the carpenters, builders,

Then, after they weighed it, they would give the money to the men who supervised the work in the temple. Then the supervisors would use that money to pay the carpenters and builders who did the repair work in the temple,

12 masons, and stonecutters. They also purchased timber and dressed stone to repair the damage to the house of the LORD, and they paid the other expenses of the temple repairs.

and the masons and the stone cutters. Also with some of that money they bought timber and stones that had been cut to be used in the repair work, and to pay all the other expenses for the repair work.

13 However, the money brought into the house of the LORD was not used for making silver basins, wick trimmers, sprinkling bowls, trumpets, or any articles of gold or silver for the house of the LORD.

But they did not use any of that money [to pay men] to make silver cups or wick trimmers or bowls or trumpets or any other items made of silver or gold to be used in the temple.

14 Instead, it was paid to those doing the work, and with it they repaired the house of the LORD.

All that money was given to the men who were doing the work of repairing the temple.

15 No accounting was required from the men who received the money to pay the workmen, because they acted with integrity.

The men who supervised the work always did things honestly, so the king’s secretary and the Supreme Priest never required that the supervisors report what they had spent the money for.

16 The money from the guilt offerings and sin offerings was not brought into the house of the LORD; it belonged to the priests.

But the money that people gave to pay for the wrong things that they had done and the money they gave to purify themselves because of the sins that they had committed was not put in the chest. That money belonged to the priests.

17 At that time Hazael king of Aram marched up and fought against Gath and captured it. Then he decided to attack Jerusalem.

At that time, Hazael, the king of Syria, went [with his army] and attacked Gath [city] and conquered it. Then he decided that they would attack Jerusalem.

18 So King Joash of Judah took all the sacred objects dedicated by his fathers—Jehoshaphat, Jehoram, and Ahaziah, the kings of Judah—along with his own consecrated items and all the gold found in the treasuries of the house of the LORD and the royal palace, and he sent them to Hazael king of Aram. So Hazael withdrew from Jerusalem.

So Joash, the king of Judah, took all the money that the previous kings, Jehoshaphat and Jehoram and Ahaziah, had dedicated to Yahweh. He added some of his own money, and all the gold that was in the rooms in the temple where valuable things were kept/stored, and the gold in his palace, and sent it all to King Hazael, [to (appease him/persuade him to not attack Jerusalem)]. So King Hazael [took his army] away from Jerusalem.

19 As for the rest of the acts of Joash, along with all his accomplishments, are they not written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah?

[If you want to read more of] what Joash did, [it] is all written [RHQ] in the scroll called ‘The History of the Kings of Judah’.

20 And the servants of Joash rose up and formed a conspiracy and killed him at Beth-millo, on the road down to Silla.

Joash’s officials plotted against him, and two of them killed Joash on the road that goes down to [the] Silla [district]. The two men who did that were Jozabad, the son of Shimeath, and Jehozabad, the son of Shomer. Joash was buried in the place where his ancestors were buried, [in the part of Jerusalem called] ‘The City of David’. Then Joash’s son Amaziah became the king of Judah.

21 His servants Jozabad son of Shimeath and Jehozabad son of Shomer struck him down, and he died. And they buried him with his fathers in the City of David, and his son Amaziah reigned in his place.