2 Chronicles 24:17-27 ▼

17 But after Jehoiada had died, officials from Judah came, bowed down to the king, and the king listened to what they had to say.

18 They abandoned the LORD's Temple and the God of their fathers, and they served Asherim and idols. As a result this guilt of theirs resulted in wrath coming upon Judah and Jerusalem.

19 Nevertheless, God sent prophets among them to bring them back to the LORD.

20 Then Jehoiada the priest's son Zechariah was clothed by the Spirit of God, and he stood above the people and told them, |This is what God has to say: 'Why are you breaking the LORD's commandments. You'll never be successful! Because you have abandoned the LORD, he has abandoned you.'|

21 But the people conspired against him, and at the direct orders of the king they stoned him to death in the courtyard of the LORD's Temple.

22 This is how King Joash failed to remember the kindness that Zechariah's father Jehoiada had shown him: he killed his son. As he lay dying, Zechariah cried out, |May the LORD watch this and avenge.|

23 At the end of that year, the Aramean army attacked Joash. They invaded Judah and Jerusalem, destroyed every senior official among the people, and sent all of their possessions to the king of Damascus.

24 The Aramean army attacked with only a small force, but the LORD delivered a much larger army into their control because Judah had abandoned the LORD God of their ancestors. And so the Aramean army carried out God's judgment on Joash.

25 After the Arameans left him very sick, Joash's own servants conspired against him because Joash had murdered Jehoiada the priest's son, and they killed him on his sick bed.

26 The conspirators included Shimeath the Ammonite's son Zabad and Shimrith the Moabite's son Jehozabad.

27 Records concerning his sons, the various prophetic statements rebuking him, and records of the reconstruction work on God's Temple are written in the Midrash of the Book of the Kings. Joash's son Amaziah reigned in his place.