¹ Say ye to your brethren, Ammi; and to your sisters, Ruhamah.

² Plead with your mother, plead: for she is not my wife, neither am I her husband: let her therefore put away her prostitutions out of her sight, and her adulteries from between her breasts;

³ Lest I strip her naked, and set her as in the day that she was born, and make her as a wilderness, and set her like a dry land, and kill her with thirst.

⁴ And I will not have mercy upon her children; for they are the children of lewdness.

⁵ For their mother hath played the harlot: she that conceived them hath done shamefully: for she said, I will go after my lovers, that give me my bread and my water, my wool and my flax, my oil and my drink.

⁶ Therefore, behold, I will hedge up thy way with thorns, and make a wall, that she shall not find her paths.

⁷ And she shall follow after her lovers, but she shall not overtake them; and she shall seek them, but shall not find them: then shall she say, I will go and return to my first husband; for then was it better with me than now.

⁸ For she did not know that I gave her corn, and wine, and oil, and multiplied her silver and gold, which they prepared for Baal.

⁹ Therefore will I return, and take away my corn in its time, and my wine in its season, and I will recover my wool and my flax given to cover her nakedness.

¹⁰ And now will I disclose her lewdness in the sight of her lovers, and none shall deliver her out of my hand.

¹¹ I will also cause all her mirth to cease, her feast days, her new moons, and her sabbaths, and all her solemn feasts.

¹² And I will destroy her vines and her fig-trees, of which she hath said, These are my rewards that my lovers have given me: and I will make them a forest, and the beasts of the field shall eat them.

¹³ And I will visit upon her the days of Baalim, in which she burned incense to them, and she decked herself with her ear-rings and her jewels, and she went after her lovers, and forgot me, saith the LORD.

¹⁴ Therefore, behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak comfortably to her.

¹⁵ And I will give her her vineyards from thence, and the valley of Achor for a door of hope: and she shall sing there, as in the days of her youth, and as in the day when she came from the land of Egypt.

¹⁶ And it shall be at that day, saith the LORD, that thou shalt call me Ishi; and shalt call me no more Baali.

¹⁷ For I will take away the names of Baalim out of her mouth, and they shall no more be remembered by their name.

¹⁸ And in that day will I make a covenant for them with the beasts of the field, and with the fowls of heaven, and with the creeping animals of the ground: and I will break the bow and the sword and the battle out of the earth, and will make them to lie down in safety.

¹⁹ And I will betroth thee to me for ever; yes, I will betroth thee to me in righteousness, and in judgment, and in loving-kindness, and in mercies.

²⁰ I will even betroth thee to me in faithfulness: and thou shalt know the LORD.

²¹ And it shall come to pass in that day, I will hear, saith the LORD, I will hear the heavens, and they shall hear the earth;

²² And the earth shall hear the corn, and the wine, and the oil; and they shall hear Jezreel.

²³ And I will sow her to me in the earth; and I will have mercy upon her that had not obtained mercy; and I will say to them who were not my people, Thou art my people; and they shall say, Thou art my God.

¹ Joash was seven years old when he began to reign, and he reigned forty years in Jerusalem. His mother's name also was Zibiah of Beer-sheba.

² And Joash did that which was right in the sight of the LORD all the days of Jehoiada the priest.

³ And Jehoiada took for him two wives; and he begat sons and daughters.

⁴ And it came to pass after this, that Joash was minded to repair the house of the LORD.

⁵ And he convened the priests and the Levites, and said to them, Go out to the cities of Judah, and gather from all Israel money to repair the house of your God from year to year, and see that ye hasten the matter. But the Levites hastened it not.

⁶ And the king called for Jehoiada the chief, and said to him, Why hast thou not required of the Levites to bring in out of Judah and out of Jerusalem the collection, according to the commandment of Moses the servant of the LORD, and of the congregation of Israel, for the tabernacle of witness?

⁷ For the sons of Athaliah that wicked woman, had broken up the house of God; and also all the dedicated things of the house of the LORD they bestowed upon Baalim.

⁸ And at the king's commandment they made a chest, and set it without at the gate of the house of the LORD.

⁹ And they made a proclamation through Judah and Jerusalem, to bring in to the LORD the collection that Moses the servant of God laid upon Israel in the wilderness.

¹⁰ And all the princes and all the people rejoiced, and brought in, and cast into the chest, until they had made an end.

¹¹ Now it came to pass, that at the time the chest was brought to the king's office by the hand of the Levites, and when they saw that there was much money, the king's scribe and the high 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 collected money in abundance.

¹² And the king and Jehoiada gave it to such as did the work of the service of the house of the LORD, and hired masons and carpenters to repair the house of the LORD, and also such as wrought iron and brass to mend the house of the LORD.

¹³ So the workmen wrought, and the work was perfected by them, and they set the house of God in its state, and strengthened it.

¹⁴ And when they had finished it, they brought the rest of the money before the king and Jehoiada, of which were made vessels for the house of the LORD, even vessels to minister, and to offer with, and spoons, and vessels of gold and silver. And they offered burnt-offerings in the house of the LORD continually all the days of Jehoiada.

¹⁵ But Jehoiada grew old, and was full of days when he died; a hundred and thirty years old was he when he died.

¹⁶ And they buried him in the city of David among the kings, because he had done good in Israel, both towards God, and towards his house.

¹⁷ Now after the death of Jehoiada came the princes of Judah, and made obeisance to the king. Then the king hearkened to them.

¹⁸ And they left the house of the LORD God of their fathers, and served groves and idols: and wrath came upon Judah and Jerusalem for this their trespass.

¹⁹ Yet he sent prophets to them, to bring them again to the LORD; and they testified against them: but they would not give ear.

²⁰ And the Spirit of God came upon Zechariah the son of Jehoiada the priest, who stood above the people, and said to them, Thus saith God, Why transgress ye the commandments of the LORD, that ye cannot prosper? because ye have forsaken the LORD, he hath also forsaken you.

²¹ And they conspired against him, and stoned him with stones at the commandment of the king in the court of the house of the LORD.

²² Thus Joash the king remembered not the kindness which Jehoiada his father had done to him, but slew his son. And when he died, he said, The LORD look upon it, and require it.

²³ And it came to pass at the end of the year, that the army of Syria came up against him: and they came to Judah and Jerusalem, and destroyed all the princes of the people from among the people, and sent all the spoil of them to the king of Damascus.

²⁴ For the army of the Syrians came with a small company of men, and the LORD delivered a very great host into their hand, because they had forsaken the LORD God of their fathers. So they executed judgment against Joash.

²⁵ And when they had departed from him, (for they left him in great diseases,) his own servants conspired against him for the blood of the sons of Jehoiada the priest, and slew him on his bed, and he died: and they buried him in the city of David, but they buried him not in the sepulchers of the kings.

²⁶ And these are they that conspired against him; Zabad the son of Shimeath an Ammonitess, and Jehozabad the son of Shimrith a Moabitess.

²⁷ Now concerning his sons, and the greatness of the burdens laid upon him, and the repairing of the house of God, behold, they are written in the story of the book of the kings. And Amaziah his son reigned in his stead.