SECOND KINGS

 

2 Kings Chapter 12

1 ¶ Joash began to reign during the seventh year of Jehu’s reign; and he reigned for forty years in Jerusalem. And his mother’s name was Zibiah of Beersheba.

2 And Joash did what was right in the sight of the LORD all his days because Jehoiada the priest instructed him.

3 But the high places were not removed: the people still sacrificed and burnt incense in the high places.

4 ¶ And Joash said to the priests, All the money for the holy things that is brought into the house of the LORD, the money which each man is assessed in payment of vows, and all the money that any man brings voluntarily to the house of the LORD,

5 Let each priest take it from his patronage: and let them repair the damage to the house, wherever such damage is found.

6 But in the twenty-third year of king Joash the priests had not repaired the damage of the house.

7 Then king Joash called for Jehoiada the priest, and the other priests, and asked them, Why have you not repaired the damage to the house? now do not accept any more money from your patronage, but turn it all over for the repair of the house.

8 And the priests agreed to receive no more money from the people, nor to be responsible for repairing the damage to the house.

9 But Jehoiada the priest took a chest, and bored a hole in the lid of it, and set it beside the altar, on the right side as one comes into the house of the LORD: and the priests who kept the door put all the money that was brought into the house of the LORD into it.

10 And when they saw that there was much money in the chest, the king’s scribe and the high priest came up and counted the money that was found in the house of the LORD, and put it in bags.

11 And they gave the money, by weight, to those who supervised the work on the house of the LORD: and they distributed to the carpenters and builders, who worked on the house of the LORD,

12 And to masons, and stonecutters, and to buy timber and cut stone to repair the damage to the house of the LORD, and for all that was paid out for repairs to the house.

13 However there were no bowls of silver, snuffers, basins, trumpets, vessels of gold, or vessels of silver made for the house of the LORD, from the money that was brought into the house of the LORD:

14 But they gave it to the workmen, and with it repaired the house of the LORD.

15 Moreover they did not require any accounting from the men, to whom they gave the money to be paid to the workmen: for they were honest.

16 But the money from the guilt and sin offerings was not brought into the house of the LORD: it was the priests’.

17 ¶ Then Hazael the king of Syria went up, and fought against Gath, and captured it: and he was determined to attack Jerusalem.

18 And Joash the king of Judah took all the consecrated things that his ancestors Jehoshaphat, Jehoram, and Ahaziah, kings of Judah, had dedicated, and his own consecrated things, and all the gold that was found in the store rooms of the house of the LORD, and the king’s palace, and sent it to Hazael king of Syria: who then went away from Jerusalem.

19 Now the rest of the acts of Joash, and all that he did, are they not written in the book of the records of the kings of Judah?

20 And his servants arose, and made a conspiracy, and killed Joash in the house of Millo, on the way that goes down to Silla.

21 It was Jozachar the son of Shimeath, and Jehozabad the son of Shomer, his servants, who killed him, and he died; and they buried him with his fathers in the city of David: and Amaziah his son reigned in his stead.