2 Chronicles 24:1–35:27

King Joash of Judah

24Joash became king of Judah at the age of seven, and he ruled in Jerusalem for 40 years. His mother was Zibiah from the city of Beersheba. ²He did what was pleasing to the Lord as long as Jehoiada the priest was alive. ³Jehoiada chose two wives for King Joash, and they bore him sons and daughters.

⁴After he had been king for a while, Joash decided to have the Temple repaired. ⁵He ordered the priests and the Levites to go to the cities of Judah and collect from all the people enough money to make the annual repairs on the Temple. He told them to act promptly, but the Levites delayed, ^6*so he called in Jehoiada, their leader, and demanded, “Why haven’t you seen to it that the Levites collect from Judah and Jerusalem the tax which Moses, the servant of the Lord, required the people^k to pay for support of the Tent of the Lord’s presence?”

⁷(The followers of Athaliah, that corrupt woman,^l had damaged the Temple and had used many of the sacred objects in the worship of Baal.)

⁸The king ordered the Levites to make a box for contributions and to place it at the temple gate. ⁹They sent word throughout Jerusalem and Judah for everyone to bring to the Lord the tax which Moses, God’s servant, had first collected in the wilderness. ¹⁰This pleased the people and their leaders, and they brought their tax money and filled the box with it. ¹¹Every day the Levites would take the box to the royal official who was in charge of it. Whenever it was full, the royal secretary and the High Priest’s representative would take the money out and return the box to its place. And so they collected a large sum of money.

¹²The king and Jehoiada would give the money to those who were in charge of repairing the Temple, and they hired stonemasons, carpenters, and metalworkers to make the repairs. ¹³All of them worked hard, and they restored the Temple to its original condition, as solid as ever. ¹⁴When the repairs were finished, the remaining gold and silver was given to the king and Jehoiada, who used it to have bowls and other utensils made for the Temple.

Jehoiada’s Policies Are Reversed

As long as Jehoiada was alive, sacrifices were offered regularly at the Temple. ¹⁵After reaching the very old age of 130, he died. ¹⁶They buried him in the royal tombs in David’s City in recognition of the service he had done for the people of Israel, for God, and for the Temple.

¹⁷But once Jehoiada was dead, the leaders of Judah persuaded King Joash to listen to them instead. ¹⁸So the people stopped worshipping in the Temple of the Lord, the God of their ancestors, and began to worship idols and the images of the goddess Asherah. Their guilt for these sins brought the Lord’s anger on Judah and Jerusalem. ¹⁹The Lord sent prophets to warn them to return to him, but the people refused to listen. ^20*Then the spirit of God took control of Zechariah son of Jehoiada the priest. He stood where the people could see him and called out, “The Lord God asks why you have disobeyed his commands and are bringing disaster on yourselves! You abandoned him, so he has abandoned you!” ^21*King Joash joined in a conspiracy against Zechariah, and on the king’s orders the people stoned Zechariah in the temple courtyard. ²²The king forgot about the loyal service that Zechariah’s father Jehoiada had given him, and he had Zechariah killed. As Zechariah was dying, he called out, “May the Lord see what you are doing and punish you!”

The End of Joash’s Reign

²³When autumn came that year, the Syrian army attacked Judah and Jerusalem, killed all the leaders, and took large amounts of loot back to Damascus. ²⁴The Syrian army was small, but the Lord let them defeat a much larger Judean army because the people had abandoned him, the Lord God of their ancestors. In this way King Joash was punished. ²⁵He was severely wounded, and when the enemy withdrew, two of his officials plotted against him and killed him in his bed to avenge the murder of the son^m of Jehoiada the priest. He was buried in David’s City, but not in the royal tombs. ²⁶(Those who plotted against him were Zabad, the son of an Ammonite woman named Shimeath, and Jehozabad, the son of a Moabite woman named Shimrith). ²⁷The Commentary on the Book of Kings contains the stories of the sons of Joash, the prophecies spoken against him, and the record of how he rebuilt the Temple. His son Amaziah succeeded him as king.

King Amaziah of Judah

25Amaziah became king at the age of 25, and he ruled in Jerusalem for 29 years. His mother was Jehoaddin from Jerusalem. ²He did what was pleasing to the Lord, but did it reluctantly. ³As soon as he was firmly in power, he executed the officials who had murdered his father. ^4*He did not, however, execute their children, but followed what the Lord had commanded in the Law of Moses: “Parents are not to be put to death for crimes committed by their children, and children are not to be put to death for crimes committed by their parents; a person is to be put to death only for a crime he himself has committed.”

War against Edom

⁵King Amaziah organized all the men of the tribes of Judah and Benjamin into army units, according to the clans they belonged to, and placed officers in command of units of a thousand and units of a hundred. This included all men twenty years of age or older, 300,000 in all. They were picked troops, ready for battle, skilled in using spears and shields. ⁶In addition, he hired 100,000 soldiers from Israel at a cost of about 3,400 kilogrammes of silver. ⁷But a prophet went to the king and said to him, “Don’t take these Israelite soldiers with you. The Lord is not with these troops from the Northern Kingdom. ⁸You may think that they will make you strongerⁿ in battle, but it is God who has the power to give victory or defeat, and he will let your enemies defeat you.”

⁹Amaziah asked the prophet, “But what about all that silver I have already paid for them?”

The prophet replied, “The Lord can give you back more than that!” ¹⁰So Amaziah sent the hired troops away and told them to go home. At this they went home, bitterly angry with the people of Judah.

¹¹Amaziah summoned up his courage and led his army to the Valley of Salt. There they fought and killed 10,000 Edomite soldiers ¹²and captured another 10,000. They took the prisoners to the top of the cliff at the city of Sela and threw them off, so that they were killed on the rocks below.

¹³Meanwhile the Israelite soldiers that Amaziah had not allowed to go into battle with him attacked the Judean cities between Samaria and Beth Horon, killed 3,000 men, and captured quantities of loot.

¹⁴When Amaziah returned from defeating the Edomites, he brought their idols back with him, set them up, worshipped them, and burnt incense to them. ¹⁵This made the Lord angry, so he sent a prophet to Amaziah. The prophet demanded, “Why have you worshipped foreign gods that could not even save their own people from your power?”

¹⁶“Since when,” Amaziah interrupted, “have we made you adviser to the king? Stop talking, or I’ll have you killed!”

The prophet stopped, but not before saying, “Now I know that God has decided to destroy you because you have done all this and have ignored my advice.”

War against Israel

¹⁷King Amaziah of Judah and his advisers plotted against Israel. He then sent a message to King Jehoash of Israel, who was the son of Jehoahaz and grandson of Jehu, challenging him to fight.^{o 18}Jehoash sent this answer to Amaziah: “Once, a thorn bush in the Lebanon Mountains sent a message to a cedar: ‘Give your daughter in marriage to my son.’ A wild animal passed by and trampled the bush down. ¹⁹Now Amaziah, you boast that you have defeated the Edomites, but I advise you to stay at home. Why stir up trouble that will only bring disaster on you and your people?”

²⁰But Amaziah refused to listen. It was God’s will for Amaziah to be defeated, because he had worshipped the Edomite idols. ²¹So King Jehoash of Israel went into battle against King Amaziah of Judah. They met at Beth Shemesh in Judah, ²²the Judean army was defeated, and the soldiers fled to their homes. ²³Jehoash captured Amaziah and took him to Jerusalem. There he tore down the city wall from Ephraim Gate to the Corner Gate, a distance of nearly 200 metres. ²⁴He took back to Samaria as loot all the gold and silver in the Temple, the temple equipment guarded by the descendants of Obed Edom, and the palace treasures. He also took hostages with him.

²⁵King Amaziah of Judah outlived King Jehoash of Israel by fifteen years. ²⁶All the other things that Amaziah did from the beginning to the end of his reign are recorded in The History of the Kings of Judah and Israel. ²⁷Ever since the time when he rebelled against the Lord, there had been a plot against him in Jerusalem. Finally he fled to the city of Lachish, but his enemies followed him there and killed him. ²⁸His body was carried to Jerusalem on a horse, and he was buried in the royal tombs in David’s City.

King Uzziah of Judah

26All the people of Judah chose Amaziah’s sixteen-year-old son Uzziah to succeed his father as king. ²(It was after the death of Amaziah that Uzziah recaptured Elath and rebuilt the city.)

³Uzziah became king at the age of sixteen, and he ruled in Jerusalem for 52 years. His mother was Jecoliah from Jerusalem. ⁴Following the example of his father, he did what was pleasing to the Lord. ⁵As long as Zechariah, his religious adviser, was living, he served the Lord faithfully, and God blessed him.

⁶Uzziah went to war against the Philistines. He tore down the walls of the cities of Gath, Jamnia, and Ashdod, and built fortified cities near Ashdod and in the rest of Philistia. ⁷God helped him to defeat the Philistines, the Arabs living at Gurbaal, and the Meunites. ⁸The Ammonites paid tribute to Uzziah, and he became so powerful that his fame spread even to Egypt.

⁹Uzziah strengthened the fortifications of Jerusalem by building towers at the Corner Gate, at the Valley Gate, and where the wall…