1In the seventh year of Jehu, Jehoash became king, and he reigned forty years in Jerusalem. His mother's name was Zibiah from Beersheba.2Jehoash did what was upright in the eyes of the LORD all the days that Jehoiada the priest instructed him.3However, the high places were not removed; the people continued to sacrifice and burn incense at the high places.4Jehoash said to the priests, All the silver of the holy things that is brought into the house of the LORD—the silver each man brings as he passes, the silver of the valuation of his life, and all the silver that a man determines in his heart to bring into the house of the LORD—5the priests shall take it, each from his acquaintance, and they shall repair the damage to the house wherever a breach is found.6But in the twenty-third year of King Jehoash the priests had not repaired the damage to the house.7King Jehoash summoned Jehoiada the priest and the other priests and said to them, "Why have you not repaired the damage to the house? From now on you shall not take silver from your acquaintances, but you shall give it for the repair of the house."8The priests agreed neither to take silver from the people nor to repair the damage to the house.9Jehoiada 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 house of the LORD. The priests who guarded the threshold put into it all the silver that was brought into the house of the LORD.10When they saw that there was much silver in the chest, the king's secretary and the high priest came up, bagged the silver, and counted the silver that was found in the house of the LORD.11They gave the counted silver into the hands of the workmen who supervised the work on the house of the LORD, and they paid it out to the carpenters and the builders who were working on the house of the LORD.12They also paid the masons and the stonecutters, and they bought timber and dressed stone to repair the damage to the house of the LORD and for any other expenditure required for the house.13No basins of silver, snuffers, bowls, trumpets, or any articles of gold or silver were made for the house of the LORD from the silver brought into the house of the LORD.14The silver was given only to the workmen, and with it they repaired the house of the LORD.15No accounting was required of the men who received the silver to pay the workmen, because they dealt faithfully.16Silver from guilt offerings and silver from sin offerings was not brought into the house of the LORD; it belonged to the priests.17At that time Hazael king of Aram went up and attacked Gath and captured it; then Hazael set out to attack Jerusalem.18Jehoash king of Judah took all the holy things that his fathers Jehoshaphat, Jehoram, and Ahaziah, kings of Judah, had dedicated, together with his own holy things and all the gold found in the treasuries of the house of the LORD and of the royal palace, and he sent them to Hazael king of Aram; and Hazael withdrew from Jerusalem.19Now the rest of the acts of Joash and all that he did, are they not written in the Book of the Annals of the Kings of Judah?20His servants rose up, formed a conspiracy, and struck Joash down at the house of Millo on the way that goes down to Silla.21Jozacar son of Shimeath and Jehozabad son of Shomer, his servants, struck him and he died. They buried him with his fathers in the city of David, and Amaziah his son succeeded him.