2 Chronicles 24:1–35:27

JUDAH’S KING JOASH

24Joash^g was seven years old when he became king, and he reigned forty years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Zibiah; she was from Beer-sheba. ²Throughout the time of the priest Jehoiada, Joash did what was right in the Lord’s sight.^{h 3}Jehoiada acquired two wives for him, and he was the father of sons and daughters.

REPAIRING THE TEMPLE

⁴Afterward,ⁱ Joash took it to heart to renovate^j the Lord’s temple. ⁵So he gathered the priests and Levites and said, “Go out to the cities of Judah and collect silver from all Israel to repair the temple of your God as needed year by year,^k and do it quickly.”

However, the Levites did not hurry. ⁶So the king called Jehoiada the high priest and said, “Why haven’t you required the Levites to bring from Judah and Jerusalem the tax imposed by the Lord’s servant Moses and the assembly of Israel for the tent^l of the testimony? ⁷For the sons of that wicked Athaliah broke into the Lord’s temple and even used the sacred things of the Lord’s temple for the Baals.”

⁸At the king’s command a chest was made and placed outside the gate of the Lord’s temple. ⁹Then a proclamation^m was issued in Judah and Jerusalem that the tax God’s servant Moses imposed on Israel in the wilderness be brought to the Lord. ¹⁰All the leaders and all the people rejoiced, brought the tax, and put it in the chest until it was full. ¹¹Whenever the chest was brought by the Levites to the king’s overseers, and when they saw that there was a large amount of silver, the king’s secretary and the high priest’s deputy came and emptied the chest, picked it up, and returned it to its place. They did this daily and gathered the silver in abundance. ¹²Then the king and Jehoiada gave it to those in charge of the labor on the Lord’s temple, who were hiring stonecutters and carpenters to renovate the Lord’s temple, also blacksmiths and coppersmiths to repair the Lord’s temple.ⁿ

¹³The workmen did their work, and through them the repairs progressed. They restored God’s temple to its specifications and reinforced it. ¹⁴When they finished, they presented the rest of the silver to the king and Jehoiada, who made articles for the Lord’s temple with it—articles for ministry and for making burnt offerings, and ladles^A and articles of gold and silver. They regularly offered burnt offerings in the Lord’s temple throughout Jehoiada’s life.

JOASH’S APOSTASY

¹⁵Jehoiada died when he was old and full of days; he was 130 years old at his death. ¹⁶He was buried in the city of David with the kings^o because he had done what was good in Israel with respect to God and his temple.

¹⁷However, after Jehoiada died, the rulers of Judah came and paid homage to the king. Then the king listened to them, ¹⁸and they abandoned the temple of the Lord, the God of their ancestors, and served the Asherah poles and the idols.^a So there was wrath^b against Judah and Jerusalem for this guilt of theirs. ¹⁹Nevertheless, he sent them prophets^c to bring them back to the Lord; they admonished them, but the people would not listen.^d

²⁰The Spirit of God enveloped^Be Zechariah son of Jehoiada the priest. He stood above the people and said to them, “This is what God says, ‘Why are you transgressing the Lord’s commands so that you do not prosper?^f Because you have abandoned the Lord, he has abandoned you.’ ”^{g 21}But they conspired against him and stoned him at the king’s command in the courtyard of the Lord’s temple.^{h 22}King Joash didn’t remember the kindness that Zechariah’s father Jehoiada had extended to him, but killed his son. While he was dying, he said, “May the Lord see and demandⁱ an account.”

ARAMEAN INVASION OF JUDAH

²³At the turn of the year, an Aramean army attacked Joash.^j They entered Judah and Jerusalem and destroyed all the leaders of the people among them and sent all the plunder to the king of Damascus. ²⁴Although the Aramean army came with only a few men, the Lord handed over^k a vast army to them because the people of Judah had abandoned^l the Lord, the God of their ancestors. So they executed judgment on Joash.

JOASH ASSASSINATED

²⁵When^m the Arameans saw that Joash had many wounds, they left him. His servants conspired against him, and killed him on his bed, because he had shed the blood of the sons of the priest Jehoiada. So he died, and they buried him in the city of David, but they did not bury him in the tombs of the kings.ⁿ

²⁶Those who conspired against him were Zabad, son of the Ammonite woman Shimeath, and Jehozabad, son of the Moabite woman Shimrith.^{o 27}The accounts concerning his sons, the many divine pronouncements about him, and the restoration^p of God’s temple are recorded in the Writing^q of the Book of the Kings. His son Amaziah became king in his place.

JUDAH’S KING AMAZIAH

25Amaziah^r became king when he was twenty-five years old, and he reigned twenty-nine years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Jehoaddan; she was from Jerusalem. ²He did what was right in the Lord’s sight but not wholeheartedly.^s

³As soon as the kingdom was firmly in his grasp, he executed his servants who had killed his father the king. ⁴However, he did not put their children to death, because—as it is written in the Law, in the book of Moses,^t where the Lord commanded—“Fathers are not to die because of children, and children are not to die because of fathers, but each one will die for his own sin.”^u

AMAZIAH’S CAMPAIGN AGAINST EDOM

⁵Then Amaziah gathered Judah and assembled them according to ancestral families,^C according to commanders of thousands, and according to commanders of hundreds. He numbered those twenty years old or more^v for all Judah and Benjamin. He found there to be three hundred thousand fit young men who could serve in the army, bearing spear and shield.^{w 6}Then for 7,500 pounds of silver he hired one hundred thousand valiant warriors from Israel.

⁷However, a man of God^x came to him and said, “King, do not let Israel’s army go with you, for the Lord is not with Israel—all the Ephraimites. ⁸But if you go with them, do it! Be strong for battle! But God will make you stumble before the enemy,^y for God has the power to help^z or to make one stumble.”

⁹Then Amaziah said to the man of God, “What should I do about the 7,500 pounds of silver I gave to Israel’s division?”

The man of God replied, “The Lord is able to give you much more than this.”

¹⁰So Amaziah released the division that came to him from Ephraim to go home. But they got very angry with Judah and returned home in a fierce rage.

¹¹Amaziah strengthened his position and led his people to the Salt Valley. He struck down ten thousand Seirites, ¹²and the Judahites captured ten thousand alive. They took them to the top of a cliff where they threw them off, and all of them were dashed to pieces.

¹³As for the men of the division that Amaziah sent back so they would not go with him into battle, they raided the cities of Judah from Samaria to Beth-horon, struck down three thousand of their people, and took a great deal of plunder.

¹⁴After Amaziah came from the attack on the Edomites, he brought the gods of the Seirites and set them up as his gods. He worshiped before them and burned incense to them.^{a 15}So the Lord’s anger was against Amaziah, and he sent a prophet to him, who said, “Why have you sought a people’s gods that could not rescue their own people from you?”^b

¹⁶While he was still speaking to him, the king asked, “Have we made you the king’s counselor? Stop, why should you lose your life?”

So the prophet stopped, but he said, “I know that God intends to destroy you, because you have done this and have not listened to my advice.”

AMAZIAH’S WAR WITH ISRAEL’S KING JEHOASH

¹⁷King Amaziah of Judah took counsel^c and sent word to Jehoash^B son of Jehoahaz, son of Jehu, king of Israel, and challenged him: “Come, let’s meet face to face.”

¹⁸King Jehoash of Israel sent word to King Amaziah of Judah, saying, “The thistle in Lebanon sent a message to the cedar in Lebanon, saying, ‘Give your daughter to my son as a wife.’ Then a wild animal in Lebanon passed by and trampled the thistle.^{d 19}You have said, ‘Look, I^C have defeated Edom,’ and you have become overconfident^De that you will get glory. Now stay at home. Why stir up such trouble so that you fall and Judah with you?”

²⁰But Amaziah would not listen, for this turn of events was from God in order to hand them over to their enemies because they went after the gods of Edom. ²¹So King Jehoash of Israel advanced. He and King Amaziah of Judah met face to face at Beth-shemesh that belonged to Judah. ²²Judah was routed before Israel, and each man fled to his own tent. ²³King Jehoash of Israel captured Judah’s King Amaziah son of Joash, son of Jehoahaz,^f at Beth-shemesh. Then Jehoash took him to Jerusalem and broke down two hundred yards^F of Jerusalem’s wall from the Ephraim Gate to the Corner Gate.^{Gg 24}He took all the gold, silver, all the utensils that were found with Obed-edom^h in God’s temple, the treasures of the king’s palace, and the hostages. Then he returned to Samaria.

AMAZIAH’S DEATH

²⁵Judah’s King Amaziahⁱ son of Joash lived fifteen years after the death of Israel’s King Jehoash son of Jehoahaz. ²⁶The rest of the events of Amaziah’s reign, from beginning to end, are written in the Book of the Kings of Judah and Israel.

²⁷From the time Amaziah turned from following the Lord, a conspiracy was formed against him in Jerusalem, and he fled to Lachish. However, men were sent after him to Lachish, and they put him to death there. ²⁸They carried him back on horses and buried him with his ancestors in the city of Judah.^Aj

JUDAH’S KING UZZIAH

26All the people^k of Judah took Uzziah, who was sixteen years old, and made him king in place of his father Amaziah. ²After Amaziah the king rested with his ancestors, Uzziah rebuilt Eloth^Cl and restored it to Judah.

³Uzziah was sixteen years old^m when he became king, and he reigned fifty-two years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Jecoliah; she was from…