⁴ Now it happened after this that Joash set his heart on repairing the house of the Lord.

⁴ And Jehoash said to the priests, ^(A)“All the money of the dedicated gifts that are brought into the house of the Lord—each man’s ^(B)census^[a] money, each man’s ^(C)assessment money—and all the money that ^[b]a man ^(D)purposes in his heart to bring into the house of the Lord, ⁵ let the priests take it themselves, each from his constituency; and let them repair the ^[c]damages of the temple, wherever any dilapidation is found.”

⁵ Then he gathered the priests and the Levites, and said to them, “Go out to the cities of Judah, and ^(A)gather from all Israel money to repair the house of your God from year to year, and see that you do it quickly.”

However the Levites did not do it quickly.

⁶ Now it was so, by the twenty-third year of King Jehoash, ^(A)that the priests had not repaired the damages of the temple.

^6 (A)So the king called Jehoiada the chief priest, and said to him, “Why have you not required the Levites to bring in from Judah and from Jerusalem the collection, according to the commandment of ^(B)Moses the servant of the Lord and of the assembly of Israel, for the ^(C)tabernacle of witness?” ⁷ For ^(D)the sons of Athaliah, that wicked woman, had broken into the house of God, and had also presented all the ^(E)dedicated things of the house of the Lord to the Baals.

⁸ And the priests agreed that they would neither receive more money from the people, nor repair the damages of the temple.

⁹ Then Jehoiada the priest took ^(A)a chest, bored a hole in its lid, and set it beside the altar, on the right side as one comes into the house of the Lord; and the priests who ^[a]kept the door put ^(B)there all the money brought into the house of the Lord.

⁹ And they made a proclamation throughout Judah and Jerusalem to bring to the Lord ^(A)the collection that Moses the servant of God had imposed on Israel in the wilderness. ¹⁰ Then all the leaders and all the people rejoiced, brought their contributions, and put them into the chest until all had given. ¹¹ So it was, at that time, when the chest was brought to the king’s official by the hand of the Levites, and ^(B)when they saw that there was much money, that the king’s scribe and the high priest’s officer came and emptied the chest, and took it and returned it to its place. Thus they did day by day, and gathered money in abundance.

¹⁰ So it was, whenever they saw that there was much money in the chest, that the king’s ^(A)scribe^[a] and the high priest came up and ^[b]put it in bags, and counted the money that was found in the house of the Lord. ¹¹ Then they gave the money, which had been apportioned, into the hands of those who did the work, who had the oversight of the house of the Lord; and they ^[c]paid it out to the carpenters and builders who worked on the house of the Lord, ¹² and to masons and stonecutters, and for buying timber and hewn stone, to ^(B)repair the damage of the house of the Lord, and for all that was paid out to repair the temple. ¹³ However ^(C)there were not made for the house of the Lord basins of silver, trimmers, sprinkling-bowls, trumpets, any articles of gold or articles of silver, from the money brought into the house of the Lord. ¹⁴ But they gave that to the workmen, and they repaired the house of the Lord with it. ¹⁵ Moreover ^(D)they did not require an account from the men into whose hand they delivered the money to be paid to workmen, for they dealt faithfully. ^16 (E)The money from the trespass offerings and the money from the sin offerings was not brought into the house of the Lord. ^(F)It belonged to the priests.

¹³ So the workmen labored, and the work was completed by them; they restored the house of God to its original condition and reinforced it. ¹⁴ When they had finished, they brought the rest of the money before the king and Jehoiada; ^(A)they made from it articles for the house of the Lord, articles for serving and offering, spoons and vessels of gold and silver. And they offered burnt offerings in the house of the Lord continually all the days of Jehoiada.