2 Kings 12:1–15

Jehoash Reigns over Judah

¹In the seventh year of Jehu, ^aJehoash became king, and he reigned forty years in Jerusalem; and his mother’s name was Zibiah of Beersheba.

²And Jehoash did what was right in the sight of Yahweh all his days in which Jehoiada the priest instructed him.

³Only ^athe high places were not taken away; the people still sacrificed and burned incense on the high places.

Jehoash Repairs the House of Yahweh

⁴Then Jehoash said to the priests, “All the money of the sacred things ^awhich is brought into the house of Yahweh, both ^bthe money for each ¹numbered man—the money from each person’s assessment in the census—and all the money which any man’s heart prompts him to bring into the house of Yahweh,

⁵let the priests take it for themselves, each from his acquaintance; and they shall repair the ¹damages of the house wherever any damage may be found.”

⁶Now it happened that in the twenty-third year of King Jehoash ^athe priests had not repaired the damages of the house.

⁷Then King Jehoash called for Jehoiada the priest, and for the other priests and said to them, “Why do you not repair the damages of the house? So now, take no more money from your acquaintances, but give it over to pay for the damages of the house.”

⁸So the priests agreed that they would take no more money from the people, nor repair the damages of the house.

⁹But ^aJehoiada the priest took a chest and bored a hole in its lid and put it beside the altar, on the right side as one comes into the house of Yahweh; and the priests who kept watch over the threshold put in it all the money which was brought into the house of Yahweh.

¹⁰Now it happened that when they saw that there was much money in the chest, ^athe king’s scribe and the high priest came up and tied it in bags and counted the money which was found in the house of Yahweh.

¹¹And they gave the money, which was weighed out, into the hands of those who did the work, who had the oversight of the house of Yahweh; and they ¹paid it out to the craftsmen of wood and the builders who worked on the house of Yahweh;

¹²and ^ato the masons and the hewers of stone, and for buying timber and hewn stone to repair the damages to the house of Yahweh, and for all that ¹was laid out for the house to repair it.

¹³But ^athere were not made for the house of Yahweh ^bsilver cups, snuffers, bowls, trumpets, any vessels of gold, or vessels of silver from the money which was brought into the house of Yahweh;

¹⁴for they gave that to those who did the work, and with it they repaired the house of Yahweh.

¹⁵Moreover, ^athey did not require an accounting from the men into whose hand they paid the money in order to pay those who did the work, for they were doing it faithfully.