2 Kings 12

1 In the seventh year of Jehu's rule, Jehoash became king; and he was ruling for forty years in Jerusalem; his mother's name was Zibiah of Beer-sheba.

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 Jehoash did what was right in the eyes of the Lord all his days, because he was guided by the teaching of Jehoiada the priest.

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

3 But the high places were not taken away; the people went on making offerings and burning them in the high places.

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 And Jehoash said to the priests, All the money of the holy things, which comes into the house of the Lord, (the amount fixed for every man's payment, ) and all the money given by any man freely from the impulse of his heart,

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 the priests take, every man from his friends and neighbours, to make good what is damaged in the house, wherever it is to be seen.

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 But in the twenty-third year of King Jehoash, the priests had not made good the damaged parts of the house.

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

7 Then King Jehoash sent for Jehoiada the priest, and the other priests, and said to them, Why have you not made good what is damaged in the house? now take no more money from your neighbours, but give it for the building up of the house.

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 made an agreement to take no more money from the people, and not to make good what was damaged in the house.

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

9 But Jehoiada the priest took a chest, and making a hole in the cover of it, put it by the altar, on the right side when one comes into the house of the Lord; and the priests who kept the door put in it regularly all the money which was taken 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 And when they saw that there was much money in the chest, the king's scribe and the high priest came and put it in bags, noting the amount of all the money there was in the house of the Lord.

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 And the money which was measured out they gave regularly to those who were responsible for overseeing the work, and these gave it in payment to the woodworkers and the builders who were working on the house of the Lord,

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 And to the wall-builders and the stone-cutters, and to get wood and cut stone for building up the broken parts of the house of the Lord, and for everything needed to put the house in good order.

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 But the money was not used for making silver cups or scissors or basins or wind-instruments or any vessels 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 But it was all given to the workmen who were building up the house.

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

15 And they did not get any statement of accounts from the men to whom the money was given for the workmen, for they made use of it with good faith.

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 of the offerings for error and the sin-offerings was not taken into the house of the Lord; it was 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 Then Hazael, king of Aram, went up against Gath and took it; and his purpose was to go up to 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 Then Jehoash, king of Judah, took all the holy things which Jehoshaphat and Jehoram and Ahaziah his fathers, the kings of Judah, had given to the Lord, together with the things he himself had given, and all the gold in the Temple store and in the king's house, and sent it to Hazael, king of Aram; and he went away 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 Now the rest of the acts of Joash, and all he did, are they not recorded in the book of the history of the kings of Israel?

[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 his servants made a secret design and put Joash to death at the house of Millo on the way 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 And Jozacar, the son of Shimeath, and Jehozabad, the son of Shomer, his servants, came to him and put him to death; and they put him into the earth with his fathers in the town of David; and Amaziah his son became king in his place.