Joash

¹¹ Joram his son, Ahaziah his son, Joash his son,

¹² Amaziah his son, Azariah his son, Jotham his son,

But Jehoshabeath daughter of King Jehoram took Joash son of Ahaziah and stole him away from among the sons of the king who were being murdered, and she put him and his nurse in a bedroom. Because Jehoshabeath, the daughter of King Jehoram and the wife of Jehoiada the priest, was Ahaziah’s sister, she hid Joash from Athaliah so that she could not kill him.

¹ Joash was seven years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem forty years. His mother’s name was Zibiah; she was from Beersheba.

² And Joash did what was right in the eyes of the LORD all the days of Jehoiada the priest.

³ Jehoiada took for himself two wives, and he had sons and daughters.

⁴ Some time later, Joash set his heart on repairing the house of the LORD.

²² Thus King Joash failed to remember the kindness that Zechariah’s father Jehoiada had extended to him. Instead, Joash killed Jehoiada’s son. As he lay dying, Zechariah said, “May the LORD see this and call you to account.”

²³ In the spring, the army of Aram went to war against Joash. They entered Judah and Jerusalem and destroyed all the leaders of the people, and they sent all the plunder to their king in Damascus.

²⁴ Although the Aramean army had come with only a few men, the LORD delivered into their hand a very great army. Because Judah had forsaken the LORD, the God of their fathers, judgment was executed on Joash.

But Jehosheba daughter of King Joram, the sister of Ahaziah, took Joash son of Ahaziah and stole him away from among the sons of the king who were being murdered. She put him and his nurse in a bedroom to hide him from Athaliah, and he was not killed.

Joash was seven years old when he became king.

¹ In the seventh year of Jehu, Joash became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem forty years. His mother’s name was Zibiah; she was from Beersheba.

² And Joash did what was right in the eyes of the LORD all the days he was instructed by Jehoiada the priest.

³ Nevertheless, the high places were not removed; the people continued sacrificing and burning incense there.

⁴ Then Joash said to the priests, “Collect all the money brought as sacred gifts into the house of the LORD—the census money, the money from vows, and the money brought voluntarily into the house of the LORD.

⁵ Let every priest receive it from his constituency, and let it be used to repair any damage found in the temple.”

⁶ By the twenty-third year of the reign of Joash, however, the priests had not yet repaired the damage to the temple.

So King Joash called Jehoiada and the other priests and said, “Why have you not repaired the damage to the temple? Now, therefore, take no more money from your constituency, but hand it over for the repair of the temple.”

¹⁸ So King Joash of Judah took all the sacred objects dedicated by his fathers—Jehoshaphat, Jehoram, and Ahaziah, the kings of Judah—along with his own consecrated items and all the gold found in the treasuries of the house of the LORD and the royal palace, and he sent them to Hazael king of Aram. So Hazael withdrew from Jerusalem.

¹⁹ As for the rest of the acts of Joash, along with all his accomplishments, are they not written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah?

²⁰ And the servants of Joash rose up and formed a conspiracy and killed him at Beth-millo, on the road down to Silla.

In the twenty-third year of the reign of Joash son of Ahaziah over Judah, Jehoahaz son of Jehu became king of Israel, and he reigned in Samaria seventeen years.