1. In the seventh year of Jehu, Joash became king and reigned 40 years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Zibiah, who was from Beer-sheba.
2. Throughout the time Jehoiada the priest instructed him, Joash did what was right in the Lord’s sight.
3. Yet the high places were not taken away; the people continued sacrificing and burning incense on the high places.
4. Then Joash said to the priests, “All the dedicated money brought to the Lord’s temple, census money, money from vows, and all money voluntarily given for the Lord’s temple,
5. each priest is to take from his assessor and repair whatever damage to the temple is found.”
6. But by the twenty-third year of the reign of King Joash, the priests had not repaired the damage to the temple.
7. So King Joash called Jehoiada the priest and the other priests and said, “Why haven’t you repaired the temple’s damage? Since you haven’t, don’t take any money from your assessors; instead, hand it over for the repair of the temple.”
8. So the priests agreed they would not take money from the people and they would not repair the temple’s damage.
9. Then Jehoiada the priest took a chest, bored a hole in its lid, and set it beside the altar on the right side as one enters the Lord’s temple; in it the priests who guarded the threshold put all the money brought into the Lord’s temple.
10. Whenever they saw there was a large amount of money in the chest, the king’s secretary and the high priest would go to the Lord’s temple and count the money found there and tie it up in bags.
11. Then they would put the counted money into the hands of those doing the work — those who oversaw the Lord’s temple. They in turn would pay it out to those working on the Lord’s temple — the carpenters, the builders,