1. Joash began to rule over Judah in the seventh year of King Jehu’s reign in Israel. He reigned in Jerusalem forty years. His mother was Zibiah from Beersheba.
2. All his life Joash did what was pleasing in the lord’s sight because Jehoiada the priest instructed him.
3. Yet even so, he did not destroy the pagan shrines, and the people still offered sacrifices and burned incense there.
4. One day King Joash said to the priests, “Collect all the money brought as a sacred offering to the lord’s Temple, whether it is a regular assessment, a payment of vows, or a voluntary gift.
5. Let the priests take some of that money to pay for whatever repairs are needed at the Temple.”
6. But by the twenty-third year of Joash’s reign, the priests still had not repaired the Temple.
7. So King Joash called for Jehoiada and the other priests and asked them, “Why haven’t you repaired the Temple? Don’t use any more money for your own needs. From now on, it must all be spent on Temple repairs.”
8. So the priests agreed not to accept any more money from the people, and they also agreed to let others take responsibility for repairing the Temple.
9. Then Jehoiada the priest bored a hole in the lid of a large chest and set it on the right-hand side of the altar at the entrance of the Temple of the lord. The priests guarding the entrance put all of the people’s contributions into the chest.
10. Whenever the chest became full, the court secretary and the high priest counted the money that had been brought to the lord’s Temple and put it into bags.