2 Kings 14:1 In the second year of Israel’s King Jehoash, son of Jehoahaz, Amaziah, son of Joash, became king of Judah.
2 Kings 14:2 He was twenty-five years old when he became king, and he reigned twenty-nine years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Jehoaddan; she was from Jerusalem.
2 Kings 14:3 He did what was right in Yahveh’s sight, but not like his ancestor David. He did everything his father, Joash, had done.
2 Kings 14:4 Yet the high places were not taken away, and the people continued sacrificing and burning incense on the high places.
2 Kings 14:5 As soon as he had the kingdom in his grasp, Amaziah killed his slaves, who had killed his father, the king.
2 Kings 14:6 However, he did not put the children of the killers to death, as it is written in the book of the law of Moses where Yahveh commanded, “Fathers are not be put to death because of children, and children are not put to death because of fathers; instead, each one will be put to death for his sin.”
2 Kings 14:7 Amaziah killed ten thousand Edomites in Salt Valley. He took Sela in battle and called it Joktheel, which is still its name today.
2 Kings 14:8 Amaziah then sent agents to Jehoash, son of Jehoahaz, son of Jehu, king of Israel, and challenged him: “Come, let’s meet face to face.”
2 Kings 14:9 King Jehoash of Israel sent word to King Amaziah of Judah, saying, “The thistle in Lebanon once sent a message to the cedar in Lebanon, saying, ‘Give your daughter to my son as a wife.’ Then, a wild animal in Lebanon passed by and trampled the thistle.
2 Kings 14:10 You have indeed defeated Edom, and you have become overconfident. Enjoy your glory and stay at home. Why should you stir up such trouble that you fall– you and Judah with you?”
2 Kings 14:11 But Amaziah would not listen, so King Jehoash of Israel advanced. He and King Amaziah of Judah met face to face at Beth-shemesh, which belonged to Judah.
2 Kings 14:12 Judah was routed before Israel, and each man fled to his tent.
2 Kings 14:13 King Jehoash of Israel captured Judah’s King Amaziah, son of Joash, son of Ahaziah, at Beth-shemesh. Then Jehoash went to Jerusalem and broke down two hundred yards of Jerusalem’s wall from the Ephraim Gate to the Corner Gate.
2 Kings 14:14 He took all the gold and silver, all the articles found in Yahveh’s temple and the treasuries of the king’s palace, and some hostages. Then he returned to Samaria.
2 Kings 14:15 The rest of Jehoash’s reign, including his accomplishments, might, and how he waged war against King Amaziah of Judah, is written in the Historical Record of Israel’s Kings.
2 Kings 14:16 Jehoash lay down with his fathers, and he was buried in Samaria with the kings of Israel. His son Jeroboam became king in his place.
2 Kings 14:17 Judah’s King Amaziah, son of Joash, lived fifteen years after the death of Israel’s King Jehoash, son of Jehoahaz.
2 Kings 14:18 The rest of Amaziah’s reign is recorded in the Historical Record of Judah’s Kings.
2 Kings 14:19 A conspiracy was formed against him in Jerusalem, and he fled to Lachish. However, men were sent after him to Lachish, and they put him to death there.
2 Kings 14:20 They carried him back on horses, and he was buried in Jerusalem with his fathers in the city of David.
2 Kings 14:21 Then all the people of Judah took Azariah, who was sixteen years old, and made him king in place of his father, Amaziah.
2 Kings 14:22 After Amaziah the king lied down with his fathers, Azariah rebuilt Elath and restored it to Judah.
2 Kings 14:23 In the fifteenth year of Judah’s King Amaziah, son of Joash, Jeroboam, son of Jehoash, became king of Israel in Samaria, and he reigned for forty-one years.
2 Kings 14:24 He did what was evil in Yahveh’s sight. He did not turn away from all the sins Jeroboam, son of Nebat, had caused Israel to commit.
2 Kings 14:25 He restored Israel’s border from Lebo-hamath as far as the Sea of the Arabah, according to the word Yahveh, the God of Israel, had spoken through his slave, the prophet Jonah son of Amittai from Gath-hepher.
2 Kings 14:26 Because Yahveh saw that the affliction of Israel was very bitter for both slaves and free people. There was no one to help Israel.
2 Kings 14:27 Yahveh had not said he would blot out the name of Israel under the sky, so he delivered them by the hand of Jeroboam, son of Jehoash.
2 Kings 14:28 The rest of the events of Jeroboam’s reign — along with all his accomplishments, the power he had to wage war, and how he recovered for Israel Damascus and Hamath, which had belonged to Judah — are written in the Book of Israel’s Kings.
2 Kings 14:29 Jeroboam lay down with his fathers, the kings of Israel. His son Zechariah became king in his place.
2 Kings 13:1 In the twenty-third year of Judah’s King Joash, son of Ahaziah, Jehoahaz, son of Jehu, became king over Israel in Samaria, and he reigned seventeen years.
2 Kings 13:2 He did what was evil in Yahveh’s sight and followed the sins that Jeroboam, son of Nebat, had caused Israel to commit; he did not turn away from them.
2 Kings 13:3 So Yahveh’s anger burned against Israel, and he handed them over to King Hazael of Aram and his son Ben-hadad during their reigns.
2 Kings 13:4 Then Jehoahaz sought Yahveh’s favor, and Yahveh heard him, for he saw the oppression the king of Aram inflicted on Israel.
2 Kings 13:5 Therefore, Yahveh gave Israel a deliverer, and they escaped from the power of the Arameans. Then, the people of Israel returned to their former way of life,
2 Kings 13:6 but they didn’t turn away from the sins that the house of Jeroboam had caused Israel to commit. Jehoahaz continued them, and the Asherah pole also remained standing in Samaria.
2 Kings 13:7 Jehoahaz did not have an army left, except for fifty horsemen, ten chariots, and ten thousand foot soldiers, because the king of Aram had destroyed them, making them like dust at threshing.
2 Kings 13:8 The rest of the events of Jehoahaz’s reign, along with all his accomplishments and his might, are written in the Historical Record of Israel’s Kings.
2 Kings 13:9 Jehoahaz rested with his fathers, and he was buried in Samaria. His son Jehoash became king in his place.
2 Kings 13:10 In the thirty-seventh year of Judah’s King Joash, Jehoash, son of Jehoahaz, became king over Israel in Samaria, and he reigned sixteen years.
2 Kings 13:11 He did what was evil in Yahveh’s sight. He did not turn away from all the sins that Jeroboam, son of Nebat, had caused Israel to commit, but he continued them.
2 Kings 13:12 The rest of the events of Jehoash’s reign, along with all his accomplishments and the power he had to wage war against Judah’s King Amaziah, are written in the Historical Record of Israel’s Kings.
2 Kings 13:13 Jehoash rested with his fathers, and Jeroboam sat on his throne. Jehoash was buried in Samaria with the kings of Israel.
2 Kings 13:14 When Elisha became sick with the illness from which he died, King Jehoash of Israel went down and wept over him and said, “My father, my father, the chariots and horsemen of Israel!”
2 Kings 13:15 Elisha responded, “Get a bow and arrows.” So, he got a bow and arrows.
2 Kings 13:16 Then Elisha said to the king of Israel, “Grasp the bow.” So, the king grasped it, and Elisha put his hands on the king’s hands.
2 Kings 13:17 Elisha said, “Open the east window.” So, he opened it. Elisha said, “Shoot!” So, he shot. Then Elisha said, ” Yahveh’s arrow of victory, yes, the arrow of victory over Aram. You are to strike down the Arameans in Aphek until you have put an end to them.”
2 Kings 13:18 Then Elisha said, “Take the arrows!” So, he took them. Then Elisha said to the king of Israel, “Strike the ground!” So, he struck the ground three times and stopped.
2 Kings 13:19 The man of God was angry with him and said, “You should have struck the ground five or six times. Then you would have struck down Aram until you had put an end to them, but now you will strike down Aram only three times.”
2 Kings 13:20 Then Elisha died and was buried. Now, Moabite raiders used to come into the land in the spring of the year.
2 Kings 13:21 Once, as the Israelites were burying a man, suddenly they saw a raiding party, so they threw the man into Elisha’s tomb. When he touched Elisha’s bones, the man revived and stood up!
2 Kings 13:22 King Hazael of Aram oppressed Israel throughout the reign of Jehoahaz,
2 Kings 13:23 but Yahveh was gracious to them, had compassion for them, and turned toward them because of his covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He was not willing to destroy them. Even now he has not banished them from his presence.
2 Kings 13:24 King Hazael of Aram died, and his son Ben-hadad became king in his place.
2 Kings 13:25 Then Jehoash, son of Jehoahaz, took back from Ben-hadad, son of Hazael, the cities that Hazael had taken in war from Jehoash’s father, Jehoahaz. Jehoash defeated Ben-hadad three times and recovered the cities of Israel.
2 Kings 12:1 In Jehu’s seventh year, Joash became king, and he reigned forty years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Zibiah; she was from Beer-sheba.
2 Kings 12:2 Throughout the time the priest Jehoiada instructed him, Joash did what was right in Yahveh’s sight.
2 Kings 12:3 Yet the high places were not taken away; the people continued sacrificing and burning incense on the high places.
2 Kings 12:4 Then Joash said to the priests, “All the dedicated silver brought to Yahveh’s temple, census silver, silver from vows, and all silver voluntarily given for Yahveh’s temple —
2 Kings 12:5 each priest is to take it from his assessor and make strong again whatever damage is found in the temple.”
2 Kings 12:6 But by the twenty-third year of the reign of King Joash, the priests had not made strong again the damage to the temple.
2 Kings 12:7 So King Joash called the priest Jehoiada and the other priests and asked, “Why haven’t you made strong again the temple’s damage? Since you haven’t, don’t take any silver from your assessors; instead, hand it over for the repair of the temple.”
2 Kings 12:8 So the priests agreed that they would receive no silver from the people and would not be the ones to make strong again the temple’s damage.
2 Kings 12:9 Then the priest Jehoiada took a chest, bore a hole in its lid, and set it beside the altar on the right side as one enters Yahveh’s temple; the priests who guarded the threshold put all the silver that was brought to Yahveh’s temple into the chest.
2 Kings 12:10 Whenever they saw a large amount of silver in the chest, the king’s secretary and the high priest would bag it up and tally the silver found in Yahveh’s temple.
2 Kings 12:11 Then they would give the weighed silver to those doing the work– those who oversaw Yahveh’s temple. They, in turn, would pay it out to those working on Yahveh’s temple — the carpenters, the builders,
2 Kings 12:12 the masons, and the stonecutters — and would use it to buy timber and quarried stone to make the damage to Yahveh’s temple strong again and for all expenses for making the temple strong.
2 Kings 12:13 However, no silver bowls, wick trimmers, sprinkling basins, trumpets, or articles of gold or silver were made for Yahveh’s temple from the contributions brought to it.
2 Kings 12:14 Instead, it was given to those doing the work, and they made Yahveh’s temple strong with it.
2 Kings 12:15 No accounting was required from the men who received the silver to pay those doing the work since they worked with integrity.
2 Kings 12:16 The silver from the reparation offering and the sin offering was not brought to Yahveh’s temple since it belonged to the priests.
2 Kings 12:17 At that time, King Hazael of Aram marched up and fought against Gath and captured it. Then, he planned to attack Jerusalem.
2 Kings 12:18 So King Joash of Judah took all the items consecrated by himself and by his ancestors– Judah’s kings Jehoshaphat, Jehoram, and Ahaziah — as well as all the gold found in the treasuries of Yahveh’s temple and the king’s palace, and he sent them to King Hazael of Aram. Then Hazael withdrew from Jerusalem.
2 Kings 12:19 The rest of the events of Joash’s reign, along with all his accomplishments, are written in the Historical Record of Judah’s Kings.
2 Kings 12:20 Joash’s slaves conspired against him and attacked him at Beth-millo on the road that goes down to Silla.
2 Kings 12:21 His slaves Jozabad, son of Shimeath, and Jehozabad, son of Shomer, attacked him. He died, and they buried him with his fathers in the city of David, and his son Amaziah became king in his place.
1 Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming to hear him. 2 But the Pharisees and the experts in the law were complaining, “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.” 3 So Jesus told them this parable: 4 “Which one of you, if he has a hundred sheep and loses one of them, would not leave the ninety-nine in the open pasture and go look for the one that is lost until he finds it? 5 Then, when he has found it, he places it on his shoulders, rejoicing. 6 Returning home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, telling them, ‘Rejoice with me, because I have found my sheep that was lost.’ 7I tell you, in the same way, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous people who have no need to repent.
There are moments in the Gospels when the tension in the air is almost visible, when the religious leaders stand on one side with their arms folded and their brows furrowed, and Jesus stands on the other side with His arms open. Luke 15 begins with one of those moments. The Pharisees and scribes are watching Jesus closely, not with admiration but with suspicion. They see Him surrounded by people they would never choose to be around—tax collectors, sinners, the socially stained, the spiritually unclean, the people who had long ago given up on ever being welcomed in a synagogue. And instead of distancing Himself from them, Jesus is eating with them, talking with them, listening to them, and treating them as if they matter.
The Complaint
That is what provokes the complaint. “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.” It is not a theological objection. It is a social one. They are offended not because Jesus is breaking a commandment, but because He is breaking their categories. They had built a religious system that kept the riffraff at arm’s length, and here is Jesus pulling them close. They had built a spiritual ladder that only the disciplined and respectable could climb, and here is Jesus walking down the ladder to sit with those who had fallen off long ago. They had built a community where holiness meant separation, and here is Jesus showing them that holiness looks like compassion.
If we listen closely, we can hear jealousy in their complaint. They cannot understand why this rabbi—this miracle‑working, Scripture‑quoting, crowd‑drawing rabbi—would spend His time among people who had nothing to offer Him. They cannot understand why He would waste His energy on the spiritually unproductive. They cannot understand why He would invest His heart in people who had already proven they were failures. And so, they grumble. They whisper. They criticize. They question His judgment. They question His motives. They question His discernment.
But Jesus does not defend Himself with an argument. He defends himself with a story. He tells them a parable so simple a child can understand it, yet so profound that the most learned theologian can spend a lifetime exploring it. He tells them about a shepherd, a flock, and one sheep that wandered away.
Before we rush into the details, we need to feel the weight of the moment. Jesus is not merely telling a story. He is revealing His heart. He is explaining why He does what He does. He is showing the religious leaders—and us—what God is really like. And He begins with a question: “Which one of you, if you had a hundred sheep and lost one, would not leave the ninety‑nine in the open country and go after the one that is lost until you find it?”
With that question, Jesus shifts the entire conversation. The Pharisees were focused on the sinners. Jesus is focused on the shepherd. They were focused on the scandal of His associations. Jesus is focused on the urgency of His mission. They were focused on the unworthiness of the lost. Jesus is focused on the worth of the lost. And so, He invites them to imagine themselves as shepherds, responsible for a flock, attentive to every sheep, aware of every danger.
The Priority of The Sheep Owner.
That brings us to the second movement of the story: the priority of the sheep owner. Emergencies always rise to the top. When a sheep goes missing, the shepherd does not shrug. He does not say, “Well, ninety‑nine out of a hundred isn’t bad.” He does not say, “That sheep should have known better.” He does not say, “I’ll deal with it later.” A lost sheep is an emergency. A wandering sheep is a crisis. A missing sheep demands immediate action.
Jesus describes the shepherd leaving the ninety‑nine in the open country. That is not negligence. That is triage. The ninety‑nine are safe together. The one is alone. The flock protects the ninety‑nine. The one is exposed to the wolves. The ninety‑nine are where they belong. The one is where it cannot survive. And so, the shepherd goes. He searches diligently. He climbs hills. He walks through ravines. He calls out the sheep’s name. He listens for the faintest bleat. He keeps going until he finds it.
This is not a casual search. This is not a half‑hearted effort. This is not a shepherd who checks a few likely spots and then gives up. Jesus says he searches “until he finds it.” That is the priority of love. That is the urgency of compassion. That is the determination of a heart that refuses to let the lost stay lost.
And here is where the parable becomes personal. Jesus is not simply describing what a good shepherd does. He is describing what He Himself is doing. He is explaining why He spends so much time among the riffraff. He is showing the religious leaders that His ministry is not a hobby. It is a rescue mission. The sinners and tax collectors are not distractions. They are the very reason He came. They are the lost sheep. They are the emergency. They are the ones who cannot find their way home without Him.
The Motive Behind the Rescue
But Jesus does not stop with the search. He moves to the motive behind the rescue. The shepherd does not search out of duty. He searches out of joy. He anticipates the moment when he will find the sheep. He imagines the relief of seeing it alive. He imagines the satisfaction of lifting it onto his shoulders. He imagines the celebration when he returns home. And that joy fuels his perseverance.
When he finally finds the sheep, he does not scold it. He does not punish it. He does not drag it home. He lifts it. He carries it. He rejoices. And when he arrives home, he calls his friends and neighbors and says, “Rejoice with me, for I have found my lost sheep.” The joy is too big to keep to himself. It spills over. It becomes communal. It becomes a shared celebration.
Jesus says that is what God in heaven is like. God and all his holy angels rejoice over one sinner who repents. Heaven erupts in celebration when one wandering soul turns back toward God. Heaven throws a party when one person who thought they were too far gone discovers that God has been searching for them all along. Heaven’s joy is not reserved for the righteous who never strayed. The return of the lost ignites heaven’s joy. The joy is the found sheep.
The Purpose of The Parable
And that brings us to the purpose of the parable. Jesus is not merely defending His ministry. He is revealing God’s heart. He is showing the religious leaders—and us—why He spends so much time among the riffraff. That is where the lost sheep are. That is where the emergencies are. That is where the future citizens of God’s eternal kingdom are currently living. That is where restoration happens. That is where grace does its best work.
Jesus is telling them, “If you want to understand Me, you must understand this: I go where the lost are. I move toward the broken. I seek out the wandering. I pursue the forgotten. I rescue the ones everyone else has written off. I do not wait for them to come to me. I go to them. And when I find them, I rejoice.”
This parable confronts us with a question: Do we share the heart of the shepherd, or do we share the complaint of the Pharisees? Do we rejoice when the lost are found, or do we grumble about the company Jesus keeps? Do we move toward the people who need grace most, or do we retreat into the comfort of the ninety‑nine? Do we see emergencies where Jesus sees emergencies, or do we see inconveniences where Jesus sees opportunities?
The truth is, every one of us has been the lost sheep. Every one of us has wandered. Every one of us has needed rescue. And Jesus came for us. He searched for us. He carried us. He rejoiced over us. And now He invites us to join Him in the search for others.
A Call to Love Sinners
This is not a call to tolerate sinners. It is a call to love them. It is not a call to endure the riffraff. It is a call to embrace them. It is not a call to protect our religious respectability. It is a call to risk it for the sake of the lost. It is not a call to preserve the comfort of the ninety‑nine. It is a call to prioritize the one.
If we want to be like Jesus, we must go where He goes, love whom He loves, seek whom He seeks, and rejoice over what He rejoices over. We must remember that the church is not a museum for the righteous. It is a rescue station for the lost. It is not a fortress to keep sinners out. It is a home where sinners discover they are loved. It is not a club for the spiritually successful. It is a community where the broken are carried on the shoulders of grace.
Jesus ends the parable with a promise: “There will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety‑nine righteous persons who do not need repentance.” That is not a mathematical statement. It is a relational one. Numbers do not measure heaven’s joy. It is measured by love. And love always rejoices when the lost are found.
So may we be a people who join the search. May we be a people who carry the wounded. May we be people who rejoice with heaven. And may we never forget that the Shepherd who searched for us is still searching for others—and invites us to walk with Him into the places where grace is needed most.
Now here’s where the text becomes uncomfortably honest for those of us who consider ourselves good, healthy, churchgoing saints. If we’re willing to look in the mirror that Jesus holds up, we may notice something we would rather not admit. When we read Luke 15, we instinctively identify with Jesus—the compassionate shepherd, the seeker of the lost, the one who moves toward the hurting. But if we slow down long enough to be truthful, we often resemble the antagonists in the story far more than the hero. We look more like the Pharisees and the teachers of the law than the Shepherd who goes searching.
We tend to cluster with people who look like us, think like us, vote like us, worship like us, and sin in the same socially acceptable ways we do. We gravitate toward the familiar. We build comfortable circles. We enjoy the safety of the ninety‑nine. And without ever saying it out loud, we begin to believe that the church exists to meet our needs, to preserve our preferences, to protect our comfort. We develop what you might call a “stay” mentality—stay with the familiar, stay with the safe, stay with the people who already belong.
But Jesus did not give His disciples a “stay” command. He gave them a “go” command. Go into all the world. Go make disciples. Go to the highways and hedges. Go to the people who are not already here. Go to the ones who are wandering. Go to the ones who would never think of walking through our doors. Go to the ones who have been told by life, by shame, or even by the church that they do not belong.
And that is where the problem lies. Our instincts often run in the opposite direction of Jesus’ mission. We stay. He goes. We gather. He seeks. We protect our comfort. He pursues the lost. We build walls. He breaks them down. We wait for people to come to us. He goes out to find them.
That is not a small problem. That is not a minor misalignment. That is a spiritual crisis. And it demands real repentance—not the kind of repentance that merely feels bad for a moment, but the kind that reorients our lives. The kind that turns us outward. The kind that reshapes our priorities. The kind that forces us to ask, “Who is the one sheep Jesus is calling me to pursue?” The kind that refuses to let the ninety‑nine become an excuse for ignoring the one.
Repentance, in this context, means acknowledging that our hearts have drifted inward. It means confessing that we have become more concerned with maintaining our religious routines than joining Jesus in His rescue mission. It means admitting that we have allowed fear, comfort, or indifference to keep us from the very people Jesus came to save. And it means consciously, deliberately reversing the trend.
Every one of us needs to reorient our focus so that it points outward rather than inward. That does not mean abandoning the church. It means remembering why the church exists. It means seeing our gatherings not as the finish line but as the starting point. It means viewing Sunday not as the destination but as the launching pad. It means asking God to give us eyes to see the people around us—at work, in our neighborhoods, in our families—who are wandering without a shepherd.
This outward focus is not a program. It is not a strategy. It is not a church growth technique. It is the heart of God. It is the mission of Jesus. It is the calling of every disciple. And it begins with repentance—a turning away from self‑preservation and a turning toward the lost sheep Jesus loves.
If we want to look like Jesus, we must go where Jesus goes. If we want to share His joy, we must share His mission. If we want to experience the celebration of heaven, we must join the search on earth. And that begins with a humble, honest confession: “Lord, we have been too much like the Pharisees. Turn our hearts outward. Make us seekers of the lost. Teach us to go.”
2 Kings 11:1 When Athaliah, Ahaziah’s mother, saw that her son was dead, she proceeded to annihilate all the royal heirs.
2 Kings 11:2 Jehosheba, King Jehoram’s daughter and Ahaziah’s sister, secretly rescued Joash, son of Ahaziah, from among the king’s sons who were being killed and put him and the one who nursed him in a bedroom. So, he was hidden from Athaliah and was not killed.
2 Kings 11:3 Joash was in hiding with her in Yahveh’s temple for six years while Athaliah reigned over the land.
2 Kings 11:4 In the seventh year, Jehoiada sent for the commanders of hundreds, the Carites, and the guards. He had them come to him in Yahveh’s temple, where he made a covenant with them and put them under oath. He showed them the king’s son
2 Kings 11:5 and commanded them, “This is what you are to do: A third of you who come on duty on the Sabbath are to protect the king’s palace.
2 Kings 11:6 A third is to be at the Foundation Gate and a third at the gate behind the guards. You are to take turns protecting the palace.
2 Kings 11:7 “Your two divisions that go off duty on the Sabbath are to provide the king protection at Yahveh’s temple.
2 Kings 11:8 surround the king with weapons in hand. Anyone who approaches the ranks is to be put to death. Be with the king in all his daily tasks.”
2 Kings 11:9 So the commanders of hundreds did everything the priest Jehoiada commanded. They each brought their men—those coming on duty on the Sabbath and those going off duty—and came to the priest Jehoiada.
2 Kings 11:10 The priest gave the commanders hundreds of King David’s spears and shields, which were in Yahveh’s temple.
2 Kings 11:11 Then the guards stood with their weapons in hand surrounding the king — from the right side of the temple to the left side, by the altar and by the temple.
2 Kings 11:12 Jehoiada brought out the king’s son, put the crown on him, gave him the testimony, and made him king. They anointed him, clapped their hands, and cried, “Long live the king!”
2 Kings 11:13 When Athaliah heard the noise from the guard and the crowd, she went out to the people at Yahveh’s temple.
2 Kings 11:14 She looked, and the king was standing by the pillar according to custom. The commanders and the trumpeters were by the king, and all the people of the land were rejoicing and blowing trumpets. Athaliah tore her clothes and screamed, “Treason! Treason!”
2 Kings 11:15 Then the priest Jehoiada ordered the commanders of hundreds in charge of the army, “Take her out between the ranks, and put to death by the sword anyone who follows her,” for the priest had said, “She is not to be put to death in Yahveh’s temple.”
2 Kings 11:16 So they arrested her, and she went through the horse entrance to the king’s palace, where she was put to death.
2 Kings 11:17 Then Jehoiada made a covenant between Yahveh, the king, and the people that they would be Yahveh’s people and another covenant between the king and the people.
2 Kings 11:18 So all the people of the land went to the temple of Baal and tore it down. They smashed its altars and images to pieces, and they killed Mattan, the priest of Baal, at the altars. Then Jehoiada, the priest, appointed guards for Yahveh’s temple.
2 Kings 11:19 He took the commanders of hundreds, the Carites, the guards, and all the people of the land, and they brought the king from Yahveh’s temple. They entered the king’s palace by way of the guards’ gate. Then Joash sat on the throne of the kings.
2 Kings 11:20 All the people of the land rejoiced, and the city was quiet because they had put Athaliah to death by the sword in the king’s palace.
2 Kings 11:21 Joash was seven years old when he became king.
jeffersonvann 