Jehoash said to the priests, “All the silver offered as sacred donations that is brought into the house of the Lord—the census tax, personal redemption payments, and silver from voluntary offerings brought into the house of the Lord—

Jehoiakim gave the silver and the gold to Pharaoh, but he taxed the land in order to meet Pharaoh’s demand for money. He exacted the silver and the gold from the people of the land, from all according to their assessment, to give it to Pharaoh Neco.

So the king summoned Jehoiada the chief and said to him, “Why have you not required the Levites to bring in from Judah and Jerusalem the tax levied by Moses, the servant of the Lord, on the congregation of Israel for the tent of the covenant?”

A proclamation was made throughout Judah and Jerusalem to bring in for the Lord the tax that Moses the servant of God laid on Israel in the wilderness.

All the leaders and all the people rejoiced and brought their tax and dropped it into the chest until it was full.

And there were those who said, “We are having to borrow money on our fields and vineyards to pay the king’s tax.