1. Joash was seven years old when he became king and reigned 40 years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Zibiah; she was from Beer-sheba.
2. Throughout the time of Jehoiada the priest, Joash did what was right in the Lord’s sight.
3. Jehoiada acquired two wives for him, and he was the father of sons and daughters.
4. Afterward, Joash took it to heart to renovate the Lord’s temple.
5. So he gathered the priests and Levites and said, “Go out to the cities of Judah and collect money from all Israel to repair the temple of your God as needed year by year, and do it quickly.”However, the Levites did not hurry.
6. So the king called Jehoiada the high priest and said, “Why haven’t you required the Levites to bring from Judah and Jerusalem the tax imposed by the Lord’s servant Moses and the assembly of Israel for the tent of the testimony?
7. For the sons of that wicked Athaliah broke into the Lord’s temple and even used the sacred things of the Lord’s temple for the Baals.”
8. At the king’s command a chest was made and placed outside the gate of the Lord’s temple.
9. Then a proclamation was issued in Judah and Jerusalem that the tax God’s servant Moses imposed on Israel in the wilderness be brought to the Lord.
10. All the leaders and all the people rejoiced, brought the tax, and put it in the chest until it was full.