Old/New Testament

Joash becomes king of Judah

23 In the seventh year that Queen Athaliah ruled Judah, the priest Jehoiada decided to be brave. He made an agreement with some officers in the army. Each of these men had authority over 100 soldiers. They were: Jeroham's son Azariah, Jehohanan's son Ishmael, Obed's son Azariah, Adaiah's son Maaseiah and Zikri's son Elishaphat. ² They travelled around all the land of Judah. They brought together the Levites from the different cities and the leaders of Israel's clans. They all came to Jerusalem. ³ They met together in God's temple to make a promise to the new king.

Jehoiada said to them, ‘Here is the king's son.^[a] He must become king, as the Lord promised that David's descendants would be. ⁴ This is what you must do: The priests and Levites who come to work on the Sabbath day must make three groups. One group must be guards who watch at the doors of the temple. ⁵ Another group will watch at the king's palace. The third group will stand at the Foundation Gate. All the other men will stand in the yards around the Lord's temple. ⁶ Only the priests and the Levites who have work there on that day may go into the Lord's temple. They may go in because they have made themselves clean to serve God. All the other people must do the jobs that the Lord has given to them. ⁷ The Levites must stand around the king. Each man must hold his weapon in his hand. If anyone tries to come into the temple, you must kill them. You must stay near to the king everywhere that he goes.’

⁸ The Levites and all the men of Judah did what Jehoiada the priest told them to do. Each officer brought his group of men. That included the men who worked on the Sabbath and those who did not. Jehoiada the priest did not allow any of the groups of men to go home. ⁹ Then Jehoiada gave some weapons that were in God's temple to the officers. He gave them the spears and the shields that had belonged to King David. ¹⁰ Then he put the men in their proper places around the king. They all held their weapons in their hands. They stood in a line from the south side of the temple to the north side. They were around the altar at the front of the temple.

¹¹ Jehoiada and his sons brought the king's son out of the temple room. They put the crown onto Joash's head. They gave him a copy of the royal covenant. They poured olive oil on his head to show that he was now the king. They shouted, ‘May the king have a long life!’

Queen Athaliah dies

¹² Queen Athaliah heard the soldiers and the people as they shouted and praised the new king. So she went to the Lord's temple where all the people were. ¹³ Then she saw the king! He was standing in the king's place beside the pillar at the entrance of the temple.^[b] The army officers and the men with trumpets were standing beside the king. All the people of Judah were shouting with joy. There were musicians making music with trumpets and other musical instruments. They helped the people to sing and to praise God.

When Athaliah saw this, she was very upset. She tore her clothes. She shouted, ‘Treason! Treason!’^[c]

¹⁴ Jehoiada the priest sent a message to the army officers who had authority over groups of 100 soldiers. He told them, ‘Bring her out of the temple to the line of guards outside. Use your swords to kill anyone who follows her.’ That was because Jehoiada had said, ‘You must not kill her inside the Lord's temple.’ ¹⁵ So they took hold of Athaliah. They took her through the gate for the king's horses into the yard of the palace. They killed her there.

Jehoiada helps the people to serve God

¹⁶ Jehoiada prepared a covenant with the Lord. He, all the people and the king agreed to serve the Lord as his people. ¹⁷ All the people went to the temple of Baal. They destroyed it. They completely knocked down its altars and idols. They killed Baal's priest, Mattan, in front of Baal's altars.

¹⁸ Then Jehoiada gave jobs to the priests and the Levites to do in the Lord's temple. That was the work that King David had told them to do in the temple. They had to offer burnt offerings as sacrifices to the Lord, and they had to praise him with happy songs. They did the things that Moses had written in God's law and that David had taught. ¹⁹ Jehoiada put guards at the gates of the Lord's temple. They would stop anyone who was unclean from going in.

²⁰ Jehoiada called together the officers of army groups, the important men, the government officers and all the other people. Jehoiada led them all to bring the king down from the Lord's temple into the palace. They went into the palace through the Higher Gate. They put Joash on the royal throne as king.

²¹ All the people were very happy. There was no longer any trouble in Jerusalem now that they had killed Athaliah as her punishment.

Joash rules Judah as king

24 Joash was seven years old when he became the king of Judah. He ruled in Jerusalem for 40 years. His mother was Zibiah, who came from Beersheba. ² Joash did things that pleased the Lord. He continued to do that all the time that Jehoiada the priest was alive. ³ Jehoiada chose two women for Joash to marry. She gave birth to sons and daughters for him.

⁴ After some time, Joash decided to repair the Lord's temple. ⁵ He brought together the priests and the Levites. He told them, ‘Go around to all the towns in Judah. Bring here all the money that Israel's people offer each year for the temple. We will use it to repair the temple of your God. Go quickly and do it now!’

But the Levites did not do it immediately.

⁶ So the king told Jehoiada, the leader of the priests, to come to him. He said to him, ‘You have not told the Levites to bring the money that the people of Judah and Jerusalem have given. Why have you not done that? The Lord's servant Moses and all Israel's people made the rule that people should give the money each year. It would be a tax to help with the tent of God's covenant.’^[d]

⁷ The sons of wicked Queen Athaliah had broken the door of God's temple. They had gone in there and they had taken the holy things. They had used them to worship the idols of Baal. That is why Joash wanted to repair the Lord's temple.

People bring money to the temple

⁸ The king told the Levites to make a big box. They put it outside the gate of the Lord's temple. ⁹ Then he sent a command to everyone in Jerusalem and in the rest of Judah. He told them to bring the money to pay their tax to the Lord. That was the tax that God's servant Moses had told the Israelites that they should pay when they were in the wilderness. ¹⁰ All the officers and all the people were happy to give this money. They brought it to Jerusalem and they threw it into the box, until the box was full. ¹¹ Every time that the box became full of money, the Levites took it to the king's officers. Then the king's secretary and the officer who served the leader of the priests took the money out of the box. Then they put the box outside the temple gate again. They did that every day, so that they had a lot of money.

¹² The king and Jehoiada gave the money to the men who would take care of the work on the Lord's temple. They paid men who could work with stone and wood to repair the temple. They also paid men who knew how to work with iron and bronze for this work.

¹³ These workers worked well so that they soon finished the work. They built the temple to be very strong, in the way that it should be. ¹⁴ When they had finished, there was some money that remained. So the workers took the money to the king and to Jehoiada. They decided to make tools to use in the temple. There were things that the priests used to serve the Lord in the temple, and to offer burnt offerings. They used gold and silver to make dishes and other things. While Jehoiada was still alive, the priests always made burnt offerings as sacrifices to the Lord in his temple.

¹⁵ But Jehoiada became very old and he died when he was 130 years old. ¹⁶ They buried him beside the kings in the City of David. They gave him that honour, because he had done many good things in Israel for God and for the temple.

Joash and the people turn away from the Lord

¹⁷ After Jehoiada died, the important officers of Judah came to the king. They bent down low in front of him to give him honour. The king listened to their advice. ¹⁸ They stopped worshipping the Lord, the God of their ancestors, in his temple. Instead, they worshipped Asherah poles and idols. So God became very angry with the people of Judah and Jerusalem, because they were guilty of these sins. ¹⁹ The Lord sent his prophets to tell the people to turn back to him. They warned the people, but the people would not listen to them.

²⁰ Then God's Spirit came to Jehoiada's son Zechariah with power. Zechariah stood in front of the people and he said, ‘This is what God says: “You are not obeying the Lord's commands. So nothing will go well for you. You have turned away from the Lord, so now he has turned away from you!” ’

²¹ The people decided to punish Zechariah. The king gave a command to punish him with death. So they threw stones at him to kill him in the yard of the Lord's temple. ²² King Joash forgot that Zechariah's father Jehoiada had been a faithful servant. He killed Jehoiada's son. Zechariah said, as he was dying, ‘I pray that the Lord sees what you have done! May he punish you because of it!’

Joash dies

²³ At the end of that year, Syria's army attacked Judah and Jerusalem, where Joash lived. They killed all the leaders of Judah's people. They took many valuable things to send to their king in Damascus. ²⁴ Syria's army was very small but the Lord gave them power over Judah's large army. He did that because Judah's people had turned away from the Lord, the God of their ancestors. Syria's army punished Joash as he deserved.

^25-26 Joash had received bad wounds in the battle. When Syria's army went away, Joash's officers decided to kill him. They were angry because he had killed Zechariah, the son of Jehoiada the priest. So they murdered him in his bed. The two officers who did this were Zabad and Jehozabad. Zabad's mother was Shimeath, who came from Ammon. Jehozabad's mother was Shimrith, who came from Moab.

Joash's people buried him in the City of David. But they did not bury him beside the graves of the other kings.

²⁷ The things that happened while Joash was king are written in a book. The book is called ‘The history of the kings’. It includes a list of Joash's sons, and the many messages that prophets spoke about him. It also includes a report of the work which he did on God's temple.

Joash's son Amaziah became king after him.

The branches must stay in the vine

15 Jesus said, ‘I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener.^{[a] 2} Some branches that are part of me may have no fruit on them. My Father completely removes all those branches. But other branches do have fruit. My Father cuts all those branches to make them better. Then they will be good and make more fruit. ³ The words that I have spoken to you have made you good already. ⁴ Continue to live in me, and I will continue to live in you. A branch cannot make fruit by itself. It can make fruit only if it continues to be part of the vine. You are like that. You cannot make fruit unless you continue to live in me.^[b]

⁵ I am the vine, and you are the branches. You must continue to live in me and I must continue to live in you. Only if you do that will you make plenty of fruit. That is because you can do nothing without me. ⁶ If anyone does not remain in me, that person is like a dead branch. The gardener will throw that branch away and it will die. People throw all those dead branches into the fire so that they burn. ⁷ You must remain in me, and my teaching must remain in you. Then you may ask for anything that you want. God will do it for you. ⁸ If you make plenty of fruit, that will give honour to my Father. You will show that you are truly my disciples.

⁹ I have loved you in the same way that the Father has loved me. Continue to live in a way that shows my love. ¹⁰ If you obey what I have told you, you will be living in my love. In the same way, I have obeyed what my Father has told me to do. In that way, I live in his love. ¹¹ I want you to be completely happy, in the same way that I myself am happy. That is why I have told you these things.

¹² This is the rule that I give to you: You must love each other, in the same way that I have loved you. ¹³ A person really loves his friends if he dies so that they can live. Nobody could love anyone more than that. ¹⁴ And you are my friends, if you obey my message. ¹⁵ A servant does not know what his master is doing. So I do not call you servants any more. No, I call you my friends. This is because I have told you everything that I have heard from my Father. ¹⁶ You did not choose me, but I chose you. I chose you to go and to make plenty of fruit. That kind of fruit will continue always. For that reason, the Father will help you with anything that you ask him. If you ask him in my name, he will do it for you.^{[c] 17} This is what I tell you to do: You must love each other.’

People will hate the disciples

¹⁸ ‘The people who belong to this world may hate you. But remember this: They hated me before they hated you. ¹⁹ If you belonged to this world, this world's people would love you. They would love you because you would belong with them. But I chose you so that you would be separate from this world's people. You do not belong with them, so they hate you. ²⁰ Remember what I told you: “No servant is more important than his master is.” If they have caused trouble for me, they will also cause trouble for you. But if they have obeyed my message, they will also obey your message. ²¹ They will do all these things to you because you belong to me. They will do them because they do not know the one who sent me.

²² I have come and I have spoken my message to them. If I had not done that, they would not have been guilty of their sin. But now they cannot say, “We have not done anything wrong.” ²³ Anyone who hates me also hates my Father. ²⁴ When I was with them, I did many great things. Nobody else ever did things like that. If I had not done those great things among them, they would not have known what is wrong. But they have seen what I did. As a result, they have hated me, and they have hated my Father too. ²⁵ Their book of God's Law says, “They hated me without any good reason.”^[d] What that book already said long ago had to happen.

²⁶ When I return to my Father, I will send the Helper to you. The Helper is God's Spirit who speaks only true things. He comes to you from the Father. I will send him to you and he will speak true things about me. ²⁷ You also must speak to people about me, because you have been with me from the beginning.’