2 Kings 12:6-16

6When Joash had been king for 23 years, the priests had still not made any repairs to the temple.

7So King Joash called Jehoiada and the other priests to come to him. He said to them, ‘You have made no repairs to the temple yet! Why not? Do not take any more of your people's money! It must only be used to make repairs to the temple.’

8The priests agreed that they would not take any more money from the people. They agreed that they would not make repairs to the temple themselves.

9Jehoiada the priest took a large box and he made a hole in the top of it. He put it outside the entrance of the temple, on the right side of the altar. The priests who were guards at the temple door took care of the box. When people brought gifts of money to the Lord's temple, the priests put the money in the box.

10Whenever there was a lot of money in the box, the king's secretary and the leader of the priests counted the money. Then they put those gifts for the temple into bags.

11When they knew how much money was there, they gave it to the men who had authority over the work. Then those men paid the carpenters and the builders who were working on the Lord's temple.

12They also paid the men that cut the stones and the men who used the stones to build with. They bought wood and they bought stones that people had cut to use for the repairs to the Lord's temple. They used the money to pay for any work on the repairs.

13But they did not use any of this money to buy things that they used in the temple. This included: silver bowls, small tools that they used for the lamps, bowls for water, trumpets, and anything else that was made with silver or gold.

14Instead, they used all the money to give to the men who had authority over the repairs to the Lord's temple.

15Those men did not have to give a report on how they used the money. People knew that they were honest men.

16But the money that people gave when they made a guilt offering or a sin offering belonged to the priests. It did not pay for the repairs on the temple.