Read the Bible

¹ IN the seventh year of Jehu Joash began to reign; and he reigned forty years in Jerusalem. And his mothers name was Zobah of Beersheba.² And Joash did that which was right in the sight of the LORD all his days wherein Jehoiada the priest instructed him.³ But the temples of idols were not taken away; the people still sacrificed and burned incense on the high places.

⁴ And Joash said to the priests, All the money of the dedicated things which is brought into the house of the LORD, even the money which every man gives for the salvation of his soul, the money which every man thinks in his heart to bring into the house of the LORD,⁵ Let the priests receive it, every man from him who has decided to give; and let them spend it for the repairing of the house, wherever a breach to be repaired shall be found in it.⁶ But it was so, that even in the twenty-third year of King Joash the priests had not repaired the breaches of the house.⁷ Then King Joash called for Jehoiada the priest and the other priests, and said to them, Why have you not repaired the breaches of the house? Now therefore you shall not receive money from those who give it to you, but deliver it for the repair of the house.⁸ So the priests agreed not to receive any more money from the people, nor to repair the breaches of 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 therein all the money that was brought into the house of the LORD.¹⁰ And when they saw that there was much money in the chest, the kings scribe and the high priest came up, and they counted and bound in bags the money that was found in the house of the LORD.¹¹ And they gave the money tied in bags to those who did the work, who had the oversight of the house of the LORD; and they gave it to the carpenters and to the builders who worked upon the house of the LORD.¹² And to the masons and the stonecutters, and to buy timber and hewed stones for the repair of the breaches of the house of the LORD, and for all that was spent to repair the house.¹³ But there were not made for the house of the LORD bowls of silver, snuffers, braziers for incense, trumpets or any vessels of gold or vessels of silver, of the money that was brought into the house of the LORD;¹⁴ But they gave that to the workmen, and repaired with it the house of the LORD.¹⁵ Moreover they did not ask an accounting from the men to whom they delivered the money to give it to the workmen; for they dealt faithfully in paying out the repair money.¹⁶ The money from the trespass offerings and the money from the sin offerings was not brought into the house of the LORD; it was the priests.

¹⁷ Then Hazael king of Aram went up and fought against Gath and took it; and Hazael set his face to go up to Jerusalem.¹⁸ And Joash king of Judah took all the hallowed things that Jehoshaphat and Joram and Ahaziah, his fathers, kings of Judah, had dedicated, and his own hallowed things and all the gold that was found in the treasures of the house of the LORD and in the kings house, and sent it to Hazael king of Aram; and he went away from Jerusalem.¹⁹ And the rest of the acts of Joash and all that he did, behold, they are written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah.²⁰ And the servants of Joash arose and made a conspiracy and slew Joash in the house of Millo, as he was going down to Silla.²¹ It was Jozachar the son of Shimeath and Jehozabar the son of Shomer, his servants, who smote him so that he died; and they buried him with his fathers in the city of David; and Amaziah his son reigned in his stead.