²⁰Then the Spirit of God entered Zechariah son of Jehoiada the priest. Zechariah stood before the people and said, “This is what God says: ‘Why do you disobey the Lord’s commands? You will not be successful. Because you have left the Lord, he has also left you.’ ”

²¹But the king and his officers made plans against Zechariah. At the king’s command they threw stones at him in the courtyard of the Temple of the Lord until he died. ²²King Joash did not remember Jehoiada’s kindness to him, so Joash killed Zechariah, Jehoiada’s son. Before Zechariah died, he said, “May the Lord see what you are doing and punish you.”

²³At the end of the year, the Aramean army came against Joash. They attacked Judah and Jerusalem, killed all the leaders of the people, and sent all the valuable things to their king in Damascus. ²⁴The Aramean army came with only a small group of men, but the Lord handed over to them a very large army from Judah, because the people of Judah had left the Lord, the God of their ancestors. So Joash was punished. ²⁵When the Arameans left, Joash was badly wounded. His own officers made plans against him because he had killed Zechariah son of Jehoiada the priest. So they killed Joash in his own bed. He died and was buried in Jerusalem but not in the graves of the kings.

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