1. Joas was seven years old when he began to reign: and he reigned forty years in Jerusalem: the name of his mother was Sebia of Bersabee.
2. And he did that which is good before the Lord all the days of Joiada the priest.
3. And Joiada took for him two wives, by whom he had sons and daughters.
4. After this Joas had a mind to repair the house of the Lord.
5. And he assembled the priests, and the Levites, and said to them: Go out to the cities of Juda, and gather of all Israel money to repair the temple of your God, from year to year: and do this with speed: but the Levites were negligent.
6. And the king called Joiada the chief, and said to him: Why hast thou not taken care to oblige the Levites to bring in out of Juda and Jerusalem the money that was appointed by Moses the servant of the Lord for all the multitude of Israel to bring into the tabernacle of the testimony?
7. For that wicked woman Athalia, and her children have destroyed the house of God, and adorned the temple of Baal with all the things that had been dedicated in the temple of the Lord.
8. And the king commanded, and they made a chest: and set it by the gate of the house of the Lord on the outside.
9. And they made a proclamation in Juda and Jerusalem, that every man should bring to the Lord the money which Moses the servant of God appointed for all Israel, in the desert.
10. And all the princes, and all the people rejoiced: and going In they contributed and cast so much into the chest of the Lord, that it was filled.
11. And when it was time to bring the chest before the king by the hands of the Levites, (for they saw there was much money,) the king's scribe, and he whom the high priest had appointed went in: and they poured out the money that was in the chest: and they carried back the chest to its place: and thus they did from day to day, and there was gathered an immense sum of money.
12. And the king and Joiada gave it to those who were over the works of the house of the Lord: but they hired with it stonecutters, and artificers of every kind of work to repair the house of the Lord: and such as wrought in iron and brass, to uphold what began to be falling.