24
King Joash of Judah
(2 Kings 11:21–12:14)
1 Joash* was 7 years old when he began to rule, and he ruled for 40 years in Jerusalem. His mother was Zibiah from Beersheba. 2 Joash did what the Lord considered right, as long as the priest Jehoiada lived.
3 Jehoiada got Joash two wives, and Joash had sons and daughters.
4 After this, Joash wanted to renovate the Lord’s temple. 5 He gathered the priests and the Levites and said to them, “Go to the cities of Judah, and collect money throughout Israel to repair the temple of your God every year. Do it immediately!” But the Levites didn’t do it immediately.
6 So the king called for the chief priest Jehoiada and asked him, “Why didn’t you require the Levites to bring the contributions from Judah and Jerusalem? The Lord’s servant Moses and the assembly had required Israel to give contributions for the use of the tent containing the words of God’s promise.” 7 (The sons of that wicked woman Athaliah had broken into God’s temple and used all the holy things of the Lord’s temple ⌞to worship⌟ other gods—the Baals.)
8 The king issued an order, and they made a box and placed it outside the gate of the Lord’s temple. 9 Then they issued a proclamation in Judah and Jerusalem that the contributions should be brought to the Lord. (In the desert the Lord’s servant Moses had required Israel to make contributions.) 10 All the officials and all the people were overjoyed. They brought the money and dropped it into the box until it was full. 11 Whenever the Levites brought the box to the king’s officers and they saw a lot of money, the king’s scribe and the chief priest’s officer would empty the box and put it back in its place. They would do this every day, so they collected a lot of money. 12 The king and Jehoiada would give the money to the foremen who were working on the Lord’s temple, and they hired masons and carpenters to renovate the Lord’s temple. They also hired men who worked with iron and bronze to repair the Lord’s temple. 13 As the men worked, the project progressed under the foremen’s guidance. They restored God’s temple to its proper condition and reinforced it.
14 When they finished, they brought the rest of the money to the king and Jehoiada, who used it to make utensils for the Lord’s temple. They made dishes and gold and silver utensils for the service and for the offerings. As long as Jehoiada lived, they sacrificed burnt offerings in the Lord’s temple.
Joash’s Sin Leads to His Assassination
(2 Kings 12:17–21)
15 When Jehoiada was old and had lived out his years, he died. He was 130 years old when he died. 16 He was buried in the City of David with the kings because of the good he had done in Israel for God and the temple.
17 After he died, the officials of Judah bowed in front of the king with their faces touching the ground. Then the king listened to their advice. 18 They abandoned the temple of the Lord God of their ancestors and worshiped idols and the poles dedicated to the goddess Asherah. This offense of theirs brought God’s anger upon Judah and Jerusalem.
19 The Lord sent them prophets to bring them back to himself. The prophets warned them, but they wouldn’t listen. 20 God’s Spirit gave Zechariah, son of the priest Jehoiada, strength. Zechariah stood in front of the people and said to them, “This is what God says: Why are you breaking the Lord’s commands? You won’t prosper that way! The Lord has abandoned you because you have abandoned him.” 21 But they plotted against Zechariah, and by the king’s order they stoned him to death in the courtyard of the Lord’s temple. 22 King Joash did not remember how kind Zechariah’s father, Jehoiada, had been to him. Instead, he killed Jehoiada’s son. As Zechariah died, he said, “May the Lord see ⌞this⌟ and get revenge!”
23 At the end of the year, the Aramean army attacked Joash. They came to Judah and Jerusalem and destroyed all the people’s leaders. The Arameans sent all the loot they took from Judah and Jerusalem to the king of Damascus. 24 The Aramean army had come with a small number of men, but the Lord handed Joash’s large army over to them because Joash’s soldiers had abandoned the Lord God of their ancestors. So the Arameans carried out ⌞the Lord’s⌟ judgment on Joash. 25 When the Arameans withdrew, they left him suffering from many wounds. His own officials plotted against him for murdering the son of the priest Jehoiada. They killed Joash in his bed. When he died, they buried him in the City of David, but they didn’t bury him in the tombs of the kings. 26 These were the men who conspired against him: Zabad, son of an Ammonite woman named Shimeath, and Jehozabad, son of a Moabite woman named Shimrith. 27 The record about his sons, the many divine revelations against him, and the rebuilding of God’s temple is in the notes made in the Book of the Kings. His son Amaziah succeeded him as king.
* 24:1 In the Masoretic text this king of Judah is also called Jehoash, a longer form of Joash.