2 Kings 12:4-16

Expanded Bible

Joash Repairsthe Temple

⁴ Joash said to the priests, “Take all the money brought as offerings to the ·Temple [^Lhouse] of the Lord. This includes the money each person ·owes in taxes [is assessed] and the money ·each person promises [from personal vows] or ·brings freely [money brought voluntarily] to the Lord. ⁵ Each priest will take the money from ·the people he serves [donors; or acquaintances; or the treasurers]. Then the priests must ·repair [restore] any damage they find in the ·Temple [^Lhouse].”

⁶ But by the twenty-third year Joash was king, the priests still had not ·repaired [restored] the ·Temple [^Lhouse]. ⁷ So King Joash called for Jehoiada the priest and the other priests and said to them, “Why aren’t you ·repairing the damage of [restoring] the ·Temple [^Lhouse]? Don’t take any more money from ·the people you serve [donors; or acquaintances; or the treasurers], but hand over the money for the ·repair [restoration] of the ·Temple [^Lhouse].” ⁸ The priests agreed not to take any more money from the people and not to ·repair [restore] the ·Temple [^Lhouse] themselves.

⁹ Jehoiada the priest took a box and made a hole in the ·top of it [lid]. Then he put it by the altar, on the right side as the people came into the ·Temple [^Lhouse] of the Lord. The priests guarding the ·doorway [entrance; threshold] put all the money brought to the ·Temple [^Lhouse] of the Lord into the box.

¹⁰ Each time the priests saw that the box was full of money, the king’s royal secretary and the high priest came. They counted the money that had been brought to the ·Temple [^Lhouse] of the Lord, and they put it into bags. ¹¹ Next they weighed the money and gave it to the people in charge of the work on the ·Temple [^Lhouse]. With it they paid the carpenters and the builders who worked on the ·Temple [^Lhouse] of the Lord, ¹² as well as the ·bricklayers [masons] and stonecutters. They also used the money to buy timber and cut stone to ·repair the damage of [restore] the ·Temple [^Lhouse] of the Lord. It paid for ·everything [anything else that was used].

¹³ The money brought into the ·Temple [^Lhouse] of the Lord was not used to make silver cups, ·wick trimmers [snuffers], bowls, trumpets, or gold or silver vessels. ¹⁴ They paid the money to the workers, who used it to ·repair [restore] the ·Temple [^Lhouse] of the Lord. ¹⁵ They did not ·demand to know how the money was spent [require an accounting], because the workers were honest. ¹⁶ The money from the ·penalty [guilt] offerings and sin offerings was not brought into the ·Temple [^Lhouse] of the Lord, because it belonged to the priests.