The two units who are off duty on the Sabbath will guard the Lord’s temple and protect the king.

The priest gave to the officers of the units of hundreds King David’s spears and the shields that were kept in the Lord’s temple.

All the people of the land celebrated, for the city had rest now that they had killed Athaliah with the sword in the royal palace.

The priests should receive the silver they need from the treasurers and repair any damage to the temple they discover.”

By the twenty-third year of King Jehoash’s reign the priests had still not repaired the damage to the temple.

The priests agreed not to collect silver from the people and relieved themselves of personal responsibility for the temple repairs.

But they did not repudiate the sinful ways of the family of Jeroboam, who encouraged Israel to sin; they continued in those sins. There was even an Asherah pole standing in Samaria.

You thoroughly defeated Edom and it has gone to your head! Gloat over your success, but stay in your palace. Why bring calamity on yourself? Why bring down yourself and Judah along with you?”

But the high places were not eliminated; the people continued to offer sacrifices and burn incense on the high places. He built the Upper Gate to the Lord’s temple.

But each of these nations made its own gods and put them in the shrines on the high places that the people of Samaria had made. Each nation did this in the cities where they lived.

At the same time they worshiped the Lord. They appointed some of their own people to serve as priests in the shrines on the high places.

They summoned the king, so Eliakim son of Hilkiah, the palace supervisor, accompanied by Shebna the scribe and Joah son of Asaph, the secretary, went out to meet them.

He sent Eliakim the palace supervisor, Shebna the scribe, and the leading priests, clothed in sackcloth, with this message to the prophet Isaiah son of Amoz:

Hezekiah took the letter from the messengers and read it. Then Hezekiah went up to the Lord’s temple and spread it out before the Lord.

Hezekiah had said to Isaiah, “What is the confirming sign that the Lord will heal me and that I will go up to the Lord’s temple the day after tomorrow?”

Manasseh passed away and was buried in his palace garden, the garden of Uzzah, and his son Amon replaced him as king.

In the eighteenth year of King Josiah’s reign, the king sent the scribe Shaphan son of Azaliah, son of Meshullam, to the Lord’s temple with these orders:

“Go up to Hilkiah the high priest and have him melt down the silver that has been brought by the people to the Lord’s temple and has been collected by the guards at the door.

The bronze of the items that King Solomon made for the Lord’s temple – including the two pillars, the big bronze basin called “The Sea,” the twelve bronze bulls under “The Sea,” and the movable stands – was too heavy to be weighed.

King Jehoash of Judah collected all the sacred items that his ancestors Jehoshaphat, Jehoram, and Ahaziah, kings of Judah, had consecrated, as well as his own sacred items and all the gold that could be found in the treasuries of the Lord’s temple and the royal palace. He sent it all to King Hazael of Syria, who then withdrew from Jerusalem.