Saturday, June 20, 2026

¹⁷Now after the death of Jehoiada, the princes of Judah came and bowed down to the king. Then the king listened to them.

¹⁸They abandoned the house of the LORD, the God of their fathers, and served the Asherah poles and the idols, so wrath came on Judah and Jerusalem for this their guiltiness.

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

²⁰The Spirit of God came on Zechariah the son of Jehoiada the priest; and he stood above the people, and said to them, "God says, 'Why do you disobey the LORD's commandments, so that you can't prosper? Because you have forsaken the LORD, he has also forsaken you.'"

²¹They conspired against him, and stoned him with stones at the commandment of the king in the court of the LORD's house.

²²Thus Joash the king didn't remember the kindness which Jehoiada his father had done to him, but killed his son. When he died, he said, "May the LORD look at it, and repay it."

²³At the end of the year, the army of the Syrians came up against him. They came to Judah and Jerusalem, and destroyed all the princes of the people from among the people, and sent all their plunder to the king of Damascus.

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

²⁵When they had departed from him (for they left him seriously wounded), his own servants conspired against him for the blood of the sons of Jehoiada the priest, and killed him on his bed, and he died. They buried him in David's city, but they didn't bury him in the tombs of the kings.

⁴"I have made a covenant with my chosen one, I have sworn to David, my servant,

⁵'I will establish your offspring forever, and build up your throne to all generations.'" Selah.

²⁹I will keep my loving kindness for him forever more. My covenant will stand firm with him.

³⁰I will also make his offspring endure forever, and his throne as the days of heaven.

³¹If his children forsake my law, and don't walk in my ordinances;

³²if they break my statutes, and don't keep my commandments;

³³then I will punish their sin with the rod, and their iniquity with stripes.

³⁴But I will not completely take my loving kindness from him, nor allow my faithfulness to fail.

²⁴"No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You can't serve both God and Mammon.

²⁵Therefore I tell you, don't be anxious for your life: what you will eat, or what you will drink; nor yet for your body, what you will wear. Isn't life more than food, and the body more than clothing?

²⁶See the birds of the sky, that they don't sow, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns. Your heavenly Father feeds them. Aren't you of much more value than they?

²⁷"Which of you by being anxious, can add one moment to his lifespan?

²⁸Why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow. They don't toil, neither do they spin,

²⁹yet I tell you that even Solomon in all his glory was not dressed like one of these.

³⁰But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today exists and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, won't he much more clothe you, you of little faith?

³¹"Therefore don't be anxious, saying, 'What will we eat?', 'What will we drink?' or, 'With what will we be clothed?'

³²For the Gentiles seek after all these things; for your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things.

³³But seek first God's Kingdom and his righteousness; and all these things will be given to you as well.

³⁴Therefore don't be anxious for tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Each day's own evil is sufficient.