⁶ But by the twenty-third year of Joash’s reign, the priests still had not repaired the Temple.

² Care for the flock that God has entrusted to you. Watch over it willingly, not grudgingly—not for what you will get out of it, but because you are eager to serve God.

²¹ All the others care only for themselves and not for what matters to Jesus Christ.

¹⁰ “How I wish one of you would shut the Temple doors so that these worthless sacrifices could not be offered! I am not pleased with you,” says the Lord of Heaven’s Armies, “and I will not accept your offerings.

³⁴ But there were too few priests to prepare all the burnt offerings. So their relatives the Levites helped them until the work was finished and more priests had been purified, for the Levites had been more conscientious about purifying themselves than the priests had been.

²⁹ So why do you scorn my sacrifices and offerings? Why do you give your sons more honor than you give me—for you and they have become fat from the best offerings of my people Israel!

³⁰ “Therefore, the Lord, the God of Israel, says: I promised that your branch of the tribe of Levi^[a] would always be my priests. But I will honor those who honor me, and I will despise those who think lightly of me.