2 Chronicles 24

¹Joash was seven years old when he began to reign, and he reigned forty years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Zibiah, of Beersheba.

²Joash did that which was right in the LORD’s eyes all the days of Jehoiada the priest.

³Jehoiada took for him two wives, and he became the father of sons and daughters.

⁴After this, Joash intended to restore the LORD’s house.

⁵He gathered together the priests and the Levites, and said to them, “Go out to the cities of Judah, and gather money to repair the house of your God from all Israel from year to year. See that you expedite this matter.” However the Levites didn’t do it right away.

⁶The king called for Jehoiada the chief, and said to him, “Why haven’t you required of the Levites to bring in the tax of Moses the servant of the LORD, and of the assembly of Israel, out of Judah and out of Jerusalem, for the Tent of the Testimony?”

⁷For the sons of Athaliah, that wicked woman, had broken up God’s house; and they also gave all the dedicated things of the LORD’s house to the Baals.

⁸So the king commanded, and they made a chest, and set it outside at the gate of the LORD’s house.

⁹They made a proclamation through Judah and Jerusalem, to bring in for the LORD the tax that Moses the servant of God laid on Israel in the wilderness.

¹⁰All the princes and all the people rejoiced, and brought in, and cast into the chest, until they had filled it.

¹¹Whenever the chest was brought to the king’s officers by the hand of the Levites, and when they saw that there was much money, the king’s scribe and the chief priest’s officer came and emptied the chest, and took it, and carried it to its place again. Thus they did day by day, and gathered money in abundance.