Joash was 7 years old when he started being king

and he did what God sees is right.

Athaliah’s sons had broken the house of God so Joash had it fixed.

Joash stayed close to the Lord God as long as the priest who helped him was alive,

but when that priest died, Joash turned away from the Lord to bow down to idols.

Then the Spirit of God came on a man name Zechariah and he told God’s word to the king.

He said, This is what God says, Why are you doing things against Me so that bad things will happen to you?

Because you turned away from the Lord God He has turned away from you.

But the king and his helpers didn’t turn back to God but instead threw rocks at Zechariah

until he was dead.

As Zechariah was dying he said, The Lord see what you are doing and get you back for this.

Then a tiny little army came from another country close by and won over Israel’s great big army because Israel turned away from God.

The sons of Zechariah came and killed the king in his bed because he had killed their dad and the people didn’t bury him in the special place to bury kings because he did bad for the people.

Joash’s son, Amaziah, was king then in his place.

King Amaziah mostly did what is right to God,

but when he needed some soldiers, he hired them from the other part of Israel.

He paid them a hundred big bags of silver.

But when he hired the other soldiers, God sent a man to tell him, Do not let those men go with you to the battle because the Lord is not with those men.

Amaziah said to the Lord, But what about all my bags of silver I gave them.

The Lord told him, I am able to give you much more than that.

So Amaziah sent those soldiers back home. They kept the silver and didn’t have to fight so it was a good deal for them.

The Lord helped Amaziah win the battle but when it was over and Amaziah and the soldiers went back home, they took some of the statues of the bad ones from that country with them to bow down to and burn sweet smells to.

The Lord got angry about this and sent a man to say, Why are you bowing down to these bad ones that couldn’t save their people?

Amaziah told the man to shut up and keep quiet

but the man told him, I know that the Lord is going to destroy you because you did this. (The Lord is life, you are choosing death).

Then Amaziah started a battle with the king of the other part of Israel.

He wouldn’t listen to the warnings because God was set to take Amaziah away from being king because he wouldn’t listen to the Lord anymore.

The other king beat Amaziah and broke down the wall of Jerusalem

and took away the treasures from the house of God and from the kings house

and some of the people were taken away too.

Then some of his own people made a plot to kill Amaziah so he ran away. But they found him and killed him.