The Daily Audio Bible

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.’^[a]

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.

Amaziah becomes king of Judah

25 Amaziah was 25 years old when he began to rule as king. He ruled in Jerusalem for 29 years. His mother's name was Jehoaddin. She was from Jerusalem. ² He did things that the Lord said were good. But he was not completely faithful.

³ Amaziah made himself strong to rule his kingdom with authority. Then he killed the officers who had murdered his father, King Joash. ⁴ But he did not punish their sons with death. He obeyed the Lord's command that was written in the Book of the Law of Moses. The command says, ‘Do not punish fathers with death when their sons do bad things. Do not punish children with death when their fathers do bad things. Each person must die only because of his own sins.’^[b]

Amaziah's army

⁵ Then Amaziah brought all the people of Judah together. For each of their clans he chose officers to lead groups of 1,000 men and groups of 100 men. He did that for the clans of Judah's tribe and the clans of Benjamin's tribe.^[c] He counted all the men who were 20 years old or older who could fight with spears and shields. There were 300,000 of them. ⁶ He also paid 3,500 kilograms of silver for 100,000 soldiers from Israel to join his army.

⁷ But a prophet went to meet Amaziah and he said, ‘Please sir, do not take these soldiers from Israel to go and fight beside your own soldiers. The Lord has turned away from the tribe of Ephraim and all of Israel. ⁸ The Lord will allow your enemies to win against you, even if you fight very well. God has the power to help you, but he can also cause your enemies to win against you.’

⁹ Amaziah said to God's prophet, ‘But I have paid 3,500 kilograms of silver for these soldiers from Israel. What should I do about that?’ The prophet replied, ‘The Lord is able to give you much more than all that money!’

¹⁰ So Amaziah sent away the soldiers who had come from Ephraim.^[d] He told them to go back to their homes. So they became very angry with Judah's people. As they went home, they had angry thoughts.

Amaziah fights against Edom

¹¹ But Amaziah was brave. He led his army to Salt Valley. There they killed 10,000 soldiers from Edom.^{[e] 12} They also caught 10,000 soldiers as their prisoners. They took them to the top of a high rock. They threw their prisoners from the top. They all fell down onto the rocks below and they died.

¹³ But the soldiers from Israel that Amaziah had sent home attacked some towns in Judah. They were angry because Amaziah had not allowed them to join his army in the battle. They killed 3,000 men in Judah's towns between Samaria and Beth Horon. They took away many valuable things from those towns.

Amaziah worships idols

¹⁴ After Amaziah's army had killed the soldiers from Edom, he returned to Judah. He brought back some idols of the gods that the people of Edom worshipped. He started to worship them as his own gods. He offered sacrifices to them. ¹⁵ So the Lord became angry with Amaziah. He sent a prophet to him with a message. The prophet said to Amaziah, ‘You should not worship these foreign gods! They could not even save their own people from your power!’

¹⁶ While the prophet was still speaking, the king said to him, ‘We did not choose you to be the king's advisor! If you do not stop speaking, my men will kill you.’ So the prophet stopped. But then he said, ‘I know what God has decided to do. He will destroy you because you have done these bad things and you have not listened to my advice.’

Amaziah attacks Israel

¹⁷ Then King Amaziah of Judah met with his advisors. Then he sent a message to King Jehoash of Israel. He was the son of Jehoahaz and the grandson of Jehu. King Amaziah's message said, ‘Come here and meet me!’

¹⁸ But King Jehoash of Israel sent this message back to King Amaziah of Judah: ‘In Lebanon, a thorn bush sent this message to a cedar tree: “Please give your daughter to my son, to be his wife.” Then a wild animal of Lebanon came and knocked down the thorn bush. It walked all over it! ¹⁹ You are proud that you have won the fight against Edom. But do not boast about your power! You may be very happy, but stay at home! Do not try to fight against us. If you do that, you will cause trouble that destroys both you and your kingdom, Judah.’

²⁰ But Amaziah did not accept Jehoash's message. God had decided to put him under the power of his enemies because he worshipped the gods of Edom. ²¹ So King Jehoash of Israel prepared to attack Amaziah's army. Jehoash and Amaziah met together in battle at Beth Shemesh, a town in Judah. ²² Israel's army won the battle against Judah's army. All the soldiers from Judah ran back home. ²³ At Beth Shemesh, King Jehoash of Israel caught the king of Judah, Amaziah, the son of Joash and the grandson of Ahaziah. King Jehoash took him to Jerusalem. He destroyed the wall of Jerusalem, between the Ephraim Gate and the Corner Gate. That part of the wall was 180 metres long.^{[f] 24} He took away all the gold and the silver from the temple, including the valuable things that Obed-Edom was taking care of. Jehoash also took the valuable things from the king's palace. He also took some of the people away with him as prisoners. Then he returned to Samaria.

Amaziah dies

²⁵ Joash's son Amaziah, the king of Judah, lived for 15 years after Jehoahaz's son Jehoash, the king of Israel, died.^{[g] 26} All the other things that happened while Amaziah was king are written in a book. The book is called ‘The history of the kings of Judah and Israel’. ²⁷ After Amaziah had turned away from the Lord, some people in Jerusalem made a plan to kill him. So he ran away to Lachish. But the people in Jerusalem sent men to catch him in Lachish. They killed Amaziah there.^{[h] 28} They carried his dead body back to Jerusalem on a horse. They buried him there beside his ancestors in the city of Judah.

How to serve God

12 My Christian friends, God has been very kind to us. Because of that, I really want you to serve God with your whole life. Offer your bodies to him like a sacrifice that continues to live. Serve him with everything that you have and that will please him. That is the true way to worship God. ² Do not become like the people who belong to this world. But let God completely change the way that you think, so that you live differently. Then you will understand what God wants you to do. You will know what is good. You will know what pleases God. You will know what is completely right.

³ God has been kind to me so that I can serve him. Because of that, I say this to every one of you: Do not think that you are better than you really are. Instead, think about yourself carefully. Decide how much God has helped you to trust him. Then you will know how to serve him well. ⁴ Each part of our body works in a different way. But all the parts belong to our one body. ⁵ In the same way, we are many people, but we all belong to Christ, like one body. We also belong to each other, like the different parts of one body belong to each other.

⁶ God has been kind to us. He has given to each of us different gifts so that we can serve him. God helps some people to speak his messages clearly. Those people should trust God to tell them what to say. ⁷ God helps some people to serve others. They should do that well. God helps some people to be able to teach others. Those people should teach well.

⁸ If God has helped you to make others strong, then you should do that. If God has helped you to share your things with others, do that seriously. If God has helped you to be a leader, do that carefully. If God has helped you to be kind to others, do that happily.

Love people and help them

⁹ Really love other people, not like a hypocrite. Hate anything that is bad. Continue to do things that are good. ¹⁰ Love each other truly like brothers and sisters. Be really happy to respect other Christians. ¹¹ Do not be lazy, but always work hard. Serve the Lord well because you enjoy it. ¹² Be happy, because you can trust God to do what he says. Be patient when you have troubles. Always continue to pray. ¹³ If any of God's people need anything, then help them with what you have. Always be happy to let people stay in your home.

¹⁴ Ask God to bless people who cause trouble for you. Yes, ask him to be kind to them. Do not ask him to do bad things to them. ¹⁵ If you are with someone who is happy, you should also be happy. If you are with someone who is sad, you should also be sad. ¹⁶ Always try to agree and to be friends with each other. Do not be proud. Be friends with people who are not important. Do not think that you know everything.

¹⁷ If someone has done bad things against you, do not do bad things back to them. Try to live in a good way so that people will respect you. They will see that you do good things. ¹⁸ If it is possible, try always to be friends with other people.

¹⁹ My friends, if someone has done bad things to you, do not try to punish them yourselves. Instead, let God be angry and punish them. This is what is written in the Bible:^[a]

²¹ Do not let evil things win against you! Instead, do good things. Then you will win against the evil things that people do.