1 In the seventh year of Jehu, Jehoash became king, and he reigned forty years in Jerusalem. His mother was Zibiah of Beersheba.
2 All his life Jehoash did what was right in the sight of the LORD, as Jehoiada the priest taught him.
3 The high places, however, were not removed; the people went on sacrificing and burning incense at the high places.
4 Jehoash told the priests, "All the money from holy gifts that is brought into the LORD's house, the money for which each man is assessed, the money from persons according to their valuation, and all the money anyone freely decides in his heart to bring into the LORD's house,
5 the priests are to receive, each from the people he deals with, and they are to repair the damaged parts of the house wherever damage is found."
6 But by King Jehoash's twenty-third year, the priests still had not repaired the damage to the house.
7 So King Jehoash called in Jehoiada the priest and the other priests and asked them, "Why are you not repairing the damage to the house? From now on take no more money from the people you deal with; hand it over for the damage to the house."
8 The priests agreed not to take any more money from the people, and also not to be responsible for repairing the damage to the house.
9 Jehoiada the priest took a chest, drilled a hole in its lid and placed it beside the altar on the right as one comes into the LORD's house. The priests who kept the doorway put into it all the money brought into the LORD's house.
10 Whenever they saw that the chest held a lot of money, the royal scribe and the high priest would come up, tie it up in bags and count the money found in the LORD's house.
11 They handed the money, once it was weighed, to the men appointed to oversee the work on the LORD's house. These paid it out to the carpenters and builders working on the LORD's house,
12 to the masons and stonecutters, and for buying timber and hewn stone to repair the damage to the LORD's house, and for every other expense of repairing the house.
13 The money brought into the LORD's house was not used to make silver basins, snuffers, sprinkling bowls, trumpets or any articles of gold or silver for the LORD's house;
14 it was given to the workmen, who used it to repair the LORD's house.
15 They did not require an accounting from the men to whom they gave the money to pay the workmen, because they acted honestly.
16 The money from guilt offerings and sin offerings was not brought into the LORD's house; it belonged to the priests.
17 About that time Hazael king of Syria went up, attacked Gath and captured it. Then Hazael turned to go up against Jerusalem.
18 Jehoash king of Judah took all the holy gifts dedicated by his fathers Jehoshaphat, Jehoram and Ahaziah, kings of Judah, along with his own holy gifts and all the gold to be found in the treasuries of the LORD's house and of the palace, and sent it to Hazael king of Syria. And Hazael withdrew from Jerusalem.
19 As for the rest of the deeds of Joash and all he did, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah?
20 His servants rose up and formed a plot, and they struck Joash down at Beth-millo, on the road down to Silla.
21 His servants Jozabad son of Shimeath and Jehozabad son of Shomer struck him, and he died. He was buried with his fathers in the city of David, and his son Amaziah became king in his place.