2 Kings 12
1 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].
Jehoash began to reign in the seventh year of Jehu, and he reigned forty years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Zibiah of Beersheba.
2 All his life, he did what pleased Yahweh, because Jehoiada the priest instructed/taught him.
Jehoash did that which was right in the LORD’s eyes all his days in which Jehoiada the priest instructed him.
3 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].
However, the high places were not taken away. The people still sacrificed and burned incense in the high places.
4 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.
Jehoash said to the priests, “All the money of the holy things that is brought into the LORD’s house, in current money, the money of the people for whom each man is evaluated, and all the money that it comes into any man’s heart to bring into the LORD’s house,
5 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.”
let the priests take it to them, each man from his donor; and they shall repair the damage to the house, wherever any damage is found.”
6 But after Joash had been ruling for almost twenty-three years, the priests still had not repaired anything in the temple.
But it was so, that in the twenty-third year of King Jehoash the priests had not repaired the damage to the house.
7 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!”
Then King Jehoash called for Jehoiada the priest, and for the other priests, and said to them, “Why are not you repairing the damage to the house? Now therefore take no more money from your treasurers, but deliver it for repair of the damage to the house.”
8 The priests agreed to do that, and they also agreed that they themselves would not do the repair work.
The priests consented that they should take no more money from the people, and not repair the damage to the house.
9 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.
But Jehoiada the priest took a chest and bored a hole in its lid, and set it beside the altar, on the right side as one comes into the LORD’s house; and the priests who kept the threshold put all the money that was brought into the LORD’s house into it.
10 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.
When they saw that there was much money in the chest, the king’s scribe and the high priest came up, and they put it in bags and counted the money that was found in the LORD’s house.
11 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,
They gave the money that was weighed out into the hands of those who did the work, who had the oversight of the LORD’s house; and they paid it out to the carpenters and the builders who worked on the LORD’s house,
12 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.
and to the masons and the stone cutters, and for buying timber and cut stone to repair the damage to the LORD’s house, and for all that was laid out for the house to repair it.
13 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.
But there were not made for the LORD’s house cups of silver, snuffers, basins, trumpets, any vessels of gold or vessels of silver, of the money that was brought into the LORD’s house;
14 All that money was given to the men who were doing the work of repairing the temple.
for they gave that to those who did the work, and repaired the LORD’s house with it.
15 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.
Moreover they did not demand an accounting from the men into whose hand they delivered the money to give to those who did the work; for they dealt faithfully.
16 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.
The money for the trespass offerings and the money for the sin offerings was not brought into the LORD’s house. It was the priests’.
17 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.
Then Hazael king of Syria went up and fought against Gath, and took it; and Hazael set his face to go up to Jerusalem.
18 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.
Jehoash king of Judah took all the holy things that Jehoshaphat and Jehoram and Ahaziah, his fathers, kings of Judah, had dedicated, and his own holy things, and all the gold that was found in the treasures of the LORD’s house, and of the king’s house, and sent it to Hazael king of Syria; and he went away from Jerusalem.
19 [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’.
Now the rest of the acts of Joash, and all that he did, are not they written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah?
20 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.
His servants arose and made a conspiracy, and struck Joash at the house of Millo, on the way that goes down to Silla.
For Jozacar the son of Shimeath, and Jehozabad the son of Shomer, his servants, struck him, and he died; and they buried him with his fathers in David’s city; and Amaziah his son reigned in his place.
