1
In the seventh year of Yehu, Yoash began to reign, and forty years he reigned in Yerushalayim. And the name of his mother was Tzivyah from Be’er-Sheva.
2
And Yoash did what was upright in the eyes of Yahuah all his days, because Yehoyada the kohen instructed him.
3
Only, the high places were not removed. The people were still sacrificing and burning incense upon the high places.
4
And Yoash said to the kohenim: “All the silver of the holy things that is brought into the House of Yahuah—the silver of each one passing through the counting, the silver of the beings according to each one’s valuation, and all the silver that rises upon the heart of an ish to bring into the House of Yahuah—
5
let the kohenim take it, each ish from his acquaintance, and let them strengthen the breaches of the House, wherever any breach is found.”
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And it came to pass, in the twenty-third year of King Yoash, that the kohenim had not strengthened the breaches of the House.
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And King Yoash called Yehoyada the kohen and the other kohenim and said to them: “Why are you not strengthening the breaches of the House? And now, do not take silver from your acquaintances, but give it for the breaches of the House.”
8
And the kohenim consented not to take silver from the people and not to strengthen the breaches of the House.
9
And Yehoyada the kohen took one chest and bored a hole in its lid, and placed it beside the altar, on the right side as an ish enters the House of Yahuah. And the kohenim who guarded the threshold placed there all the silver that was brought into the House of Yahuah.
10
And it came to pass, when they saw that there was much silver in the chest, that the scribe of the king and the great kohen went up, and they bound and counted the silver that was found in the House of Yahuah.
11
And they gave the silver, weighed out, into the hands of those doing the work, those appointed over the House of Yahuah. And they brought it out to the craftsmen of wood and to the builders who worked upon the House of Yahuah,
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and to the masons and to the cutters of stone, and to buy timber and hewn stone to strengthen the breaches of the House of Yahuah, and for all that went out upon the House to strengthen it.
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However, there were not made for the House of Yahuah basins of silver, snuffers, bowls, trumpets, any vessel of gold, or vessel of silver, from the silver that was brought into the House of Yahuah.
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For they gave it to those doing the work, and with it they strengthened the House of Yahuah.
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And they did not reckon with the men into whose hand they gave the silver to give to those doing the work, for they dealt in faithfulness.
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The silver of the guilt offerings and the silver of the sin offerings was not brought into the House of Yahuah; it belonged to the kohenim.
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Then Chazael king of Aram went up and fought against Gat and captured it. And Chazael set his face to go up against Yerushalayim.
18
And Yoash king of Yehudah took all the holy things that Yehoshafat, and Yehoram, and Achazyahu, his fathers, kings of Yehudah, had set apart, and his own holy things, and all the gold found in the treasuries of the House of Yahuah and of the house of the king, and sent them to Chazael king of Aram. And he went up from Yerushalayim.
19
And the rest of the matters of Yoash, and all that he did, are they not written in the Sefer of the Matters of the Days of the Kings of Yehudah?
20
And his servants rose and cut a conspiracy, and struck Yoash at Beit-Millo, on the way that goes down to Silla.
21
And Yozakhar son of Shimat and Yehozavad son of Shomer, his servants, struck him, and he died. And they buried him with his fathers in the City of Daviyd. And Amatzyahu his son reigned in his place.