1. Joash was seven years old when he became king.
2. In the seventh year of Jehu, Joash became king, and he reigned forty years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Zibiah, from Beer-sheba.
3. Joash did what was right in the Lord’s sight as long as he lived, because Jehoiada the priest guided him,
4. though the high places did not disappear; the people continued to sacrifice and to burn incense on the high places.
5. Joash said to the priests: “All the funds for sacred purposes that are brought to the house of the Lord—the census tax, personal redemption money—and all funds that are freely brought to the house of the Lord,
6. the priests may take for themselves, each from his own vendor. However, they must make whatever repairs on the temple may prove necessary.”
7. Nevertheless, as late as the twenty-third year of the reign of King Joash, the priests had not made needed repairs on the temple.
8. Accordingly, King Joash summoned the priest Jehoiada and the other priests. He asked, “Why do you not repair the temple? You must no longer take funds from your vendors, but you shall turn them over for the repairs.”
9. So the priests agreed that they would neither take funds from the people nor make the repairs on the temple.
10. Jehoiada the priest then took a chest, bored a hole in its lid, and set it beside the altar, on the right as one entered the house of the Lord. The priests who kept the doors would put into it all the silver that was brought to the house of the Lord.