This edition follows the Hebrew versification; the traditional number is given in brackets.
Joash Repairs the Temple
1[11:21]Joash was seven years old when he began to reign. 2[12:1]In the seventh year of Jehu, Joash began to reign, and he reigned forty years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Zibiah, from Beersheba. 3[12:2]Joash did what was right in the eyes of Yahweh all his days, because the priest Jehoiada instructed him. 4[12:3]The high places, however, were not removed; the people continued sacrificing and burning incense on the high places. 5[12:4]Joash said to the priests, “All the money brought as sacred gifts into the temple of Yahweh — the money collected in the census, the money from personal vows, and all the money that anyone freely brings to the temple of Yahweh — 6[12:5]let the priests receive it, each from those he knows, and let them repair the damage to the temple wherever it is found.” 7[12:6]But by the twenty-third year of King Joash, the priests still had not repaired the damage to the temple. 8[12:7]So King Joash summoned Jehoiada the priest and the other priests and asked them, “Why haven’t you repaired the damage to the temple? From now on, do not accept any more money from those you know, but hand it over for the repair of the temple.” 9[12:8]The priests agreed neither to accept any more money from the people nor to be responsible for repairing the temple. 10[12:9]Then Jehoiada the priest took a chest, bored a hole in its lid, and set it beside the altar, on the right side as one enters the temple of Yahweh. The priests who guarded the threshold put into it all the money brought to the temple of Yahweh. 11[12:10]Whenever they saw that there was a large amount of money in the chest, the royal secretary and the high priest would come, count the money found in the temple of Yahweh, and put it into bags. 12[12:11]They would give the counted money to those in charge of the work on the temple, and these paid it out to the carpenters and builders working on the temple of Yahweh, 13[12:12]to the masons and stonecutters, and for buying timber and quarried stone to repair the damage to the temple of Yahweh, and for every other expense of restoring it. 14[12:13]None of the money brought to the temple of Yahweh was used to make silver basins, wick trimmers, sprinkling bowls, trumpets, or any article of gold or silver for the temple of Yahweh — 15[12:14]it was given to the workmen, who used it to repair the temple. 16[12:15]They did not require an accounting from the men to whom the money was entrusted for the workmen, because they carried out the work faithfully.
Hazael Threatens Jerusalem
17[12:16]The money from guilt offerings and sin offerings was not brought into the temple of Yahweh — it belonged to the priests. 18[12:17]About that time Hazael, king of Aram, went up and attacked Gath and captured it. Then he set his face to march on Jerusalem. 19[12:18]So Joash, king of Judah, took all the sacred gifts dedicated by Jehoshaphat, Jehoram, and Ahaziah, his fathers, the kings of Judah, along with his own sacred gifts, and all the gold found in the treasuries of the temple of Yahweh and the royal palace, and sent it to Hazael, king of Aram. And Hazael withdrew from Jerusalem. 20[12:19]Isn’t the rest of the acts of Joash, and everything he did, written in the Annals of the Kings of Judah? 21[12:20]His servants rose up, formed a conspiracy, and struck down Joash at Beth-millo, on the road down to Silla. 22[12:21]Jozabad son of Shimeath and Jehozabad son of Shomer, his servants, struck him down, and he died. They buried him with his fathers in the City of David, and Amaziah his son reigned in his place.
