1Joash ¹⁵reigned in the seventh year of Jehu; he reigned forty years in Jerusalem; the name of his mother was Zibiah of Beersheba.

2And Joash did rightfulness before the Lord in all the days, in which Jehoiada, the priest, taught him.

3Nevertheless he did not away the high things; for yet the people made sacrifice, and burnt incense in high things.

4And Joash said to the priests, All the money of [the] holy things, that is brought of men passing forth into the temple of the Lord, and that is offered for the price of [the] soul, and that men bring willfully, and by freedom of their heart, into the temple of the Lord, [the] priests by their order take it.

5And the priests repair the coverings of the house, if they see anything needful in repairing.

6Soothly the priests repaired not the coverings of the temple, unto the three and twentieth year of king Joash.

7And Joash, the king, called Jehoi-ada, the bishop, and the priests, and said to them, Why have ye not repaired the coverings of the temple? Therefore do not ye more take money by your order, but yield it to the reparation of the temple.

8And the priests were forbidden to take [any] more money of the people, and to repair the coverings of the house.

9And Jehoiada, the bishop, took a coffer of the treasury, and opened an hole [there] above, and setted it beside the altar, at the right side of men entering into the house of the Lord; and [the] priests, that kept the doors, sent, or put, into it all the money that was brought to the temple of the Lord.

10And when they saw that full much money was in the treasury, the scribe of the king and the bishop went up, and poured it out, and they numbered the money that was found in the house of the Lord.

11And they gave it by number and measure into the hand of them, that were sovereigns to the masons of the house of the Lord, the which gave it in carpenters, and in these masons, that wrought in the house of the Lord, and made the coverings,

12and in these men that hewed stones; and that they should buy trees and stones, that were hewn down; so that the reparation of the house of the Lord was [ful] filled in all things, that needed cost to make strong the house.

13Nevertheless water pots of the temple of the Lord were not made of the same money, and fleshhooks, and censers, and trumps; each vessel of gold and of silver were not made of the money, that was brought into the temple of the Lord.

14For it was given to them that made the work, that the temple of the Lord should be repaired.

15And reckoning was not made to these men that took the money, that they should deal it to [the] craftsmen; but they treated, or spended, it in faith.

16Soothly they brought not into the temple of the Lord the money offered for trespass, and the money for sins, for it was the priests’.

17Then Hazael, king of Syria, went up, and fought against Gath; and he took it, and dressed his face, that he should ascend [or go up] into Jerusalem.

18Wherefore Joash, king of Judah, took all the hallowed things, that Jehosh-aphat had hallowed, and Jehoram ¹⁶, and Ahaziah, the fathers of him, kings of Judah, and which things he had offered, and all the silver, that might be found in the treasures [or treasuries] of the temple of the Lord, and in the palace of the king. And he sent these to Hazael, king of Syria; and he went away from Jerusalem.

19Soothly the residue of the words of Joash, and all things that he did, whether these be not written in the book of [the] words of [the] days of the kings of Judah?

20And the servants of Joash rose, and swore together betwixt themselves, and smote Joash in the house of Millo, and in the going down of Silla.

21For Jozachar, the son of Shimeath, and Jehozabad, the son of Shomer, his servants, smote him, and he was dead; and they buried him with his fathers in the city of David; and Amaziah, his son, reigned for him.