Shabbat Shekalim

This translation was taken from the JPS Tanakh

II Kings 11:17 – 12:17

Ashkenazim begin at 12:1

¹⁷ And Jehoiada solemnized the covenant between the Lord, on the one hand, and the king and the people, on the other — as well as between the king and the people — that they should be the people of the Lord. 18 Thereupon all the people of the land went to the temple of Baal. They tore it down and smashed its altars and images to bits, and they slew Mattan, the priest of Baal, in front of the altars. [Jehoiada] the priest then placed guards over the House of the Lord. ¹⁹He took the chiefs of hundreds, the Carites, the guards, and all the people of the land, and they escorted the king from the House of the Lord into the royal palace by the gate of the guards. And he ascended the royal throne. ²⁰ All the people of the land rejoiced, and the city was quiet. As for Athalia, she had been put to the sword in the royal palace.

Ashkenazim begin here 
Chapter 12
¹ Jehoash was seven years old when he became king. ² Jehoash began his reign in the seventh year of Jehu, and he reigned in Jerusalem forty years. His mother’s name was Zibiah of Beer-sheba. ³ All his days Jehoash did what was pleasing to the Lord, as the priest Jehoiada instructed him. ⁴ The shrines, however, were not removed; the people continued to sacrifice and offer at the shrines.

⁵ Jehoash said to the priests, “All the money, current money, brought into the House of the Lord as sacred donations — any money a man may pay as the money equivalent of persons, or any other money that a man may be minded to bring to the House of the Lord — ⁶ let the priests receive it, each from his benefactor; they, in turn, shall make repairs on the House, wherever damage may be found.”

⁷ But in the twenty-third year of King Jehoash, [it was found that] the priests had not made the repairs on the House. ⁸ So King Jehoash summoned the priest Jehoiada and the other priests and said to them, “Why have you not kept the House in repair? Now do not accept money from your benefactors any more, but have it donated for the repair of the House.” ⁹ The priests agreed that they would neither accept money from the people nor make repairs on the House.

¹⁰ And the priest Jehoiada took a chest and bored a hole in its lid. He placed it at the right side of the altar as one entered the House of the Lord, and the priestly guards of the threshold deposited there all the money that was brought into the House of the Lord. ¹¹ Whenever they saw that there was much money in the chest, the royal scribe and the high priest would come up and put the money accumulated in the House of the Lord into bags, and they would count it. ¹² Then they would deliver the money that was weighed out to the overseers of the work, who were in charge of the House of the Lord. These, in turn, used to pay the carpenters and the laborers who worked on the House of the Lord, ¹³ and the masons and the stonecutters. They also paid for wood and for quarried stone with which to make the repairs on the House of the Lord, and for every other expenditure that had to be made in repairing the House. ¹⁴ However, no silver bowls and no snuffers, basins, or trumpets — no vessels of gold or silver — were made at the House of the Lord from the money brought into the House of the Lord;¹⁵ this was given only to the overseers of the work for the repair of the House of the Lord. ¹⁶ No check was kept on the men to whom the money was delivered to pay the workers; for they dealt honestly.

¹⁷ Money brought as a guilt offering or as a sin offering was not deposited in the House of the Lord; it went to the priests.

In addition, there is a special Torah reading for Shabbat Shekalim, which is reprinted below.

Exodus 30:11-16
¹¹ The Lord spoke to Moses, saying: ¹² When you take a census of the Israelite people according to their enrollment, each shall pay the Lord a ransom for himself on being enrolled, that no plague may come upon them through their being enrolled. ¹³ This is what everyone who is entered in the records shall pay: a half-shekel by the sanctuary weight — twenty gerahs to the shekel — a half-shekel as an offering to the Lord. ¹⁴ Everyone who is entered in the records, from the age of twenty years up, shall give the Lord’s offering: ¹⁵ the rich shall not pay more and the poor shall not pay less than half a shekel when giving the Lord’s offering as expiation for your persons. ¹⁶ You shall take the expiation money from the Israelites and assign it to the service of the Tent of Meeting; it shall serve the Israelites as a reminder before the Lord, as expiation for your persons.

Taken from Tanakh, The Holy Scriptures, (Philadelphia, Jerusalem: Jewish Publication Society) 1985.
Used by permission of The Jewish Publication Society. Copyright © 1962, 1992
Third Edition by the Jewish Publication Society.
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