And they forsook the house of the LORD: The common Hebrew conjunction rendered And introduces the result of Joash’s acceptance of the Judean leaders’ advice, so Good News Translation has “And so.” The pronoun they may refer grammatically to Joash and the other leaders of Judah, but Good News Translation takes it as pointing to “the people” in general. Probably it is better to translate “The king and these leaders” (New Century Version) and leave implied that if the leaders abandoned the worship of Yahweh, the other people followed. They forsook the house of the LORD means they decided to stop worshiping there (so Good News Translation).

The God of their fathers: Fathers here refers to “ancestors” (Good News Translation, New Century Version).

And served the Asherim and the idols: There is a causal relationship between this action and the previous one. Because the people began to worship idols, they quit worshiping in the Temple. For Asherim, which were representations of the goddess Asherah, see the comments on 2 Chr 14.3. The Asherim and the idols may be rendered “the idols of Asherah and other idols” since the images of Asherah were certainly idols in the mind of the Chronicler.

And wrath came upon Judah and Jerusalem for this their guilt: The wrath may be identified as “the LORD’s anger” (Good News Translation) or “God’s anger” (Moffatt, Bible en français courant). As usual, the expression Judah and Jerusalem may be better expressed as “Jerusalem and the rest of Judah.” This their guilt refers to their sin of abandoning the LORD and worshiping other gods. For this whole clause Contemporary English Version has “These sinful things made the LORD God angry with the people of Judah and Jerusalem.” Another possible model is “God became angry with the people of Jerusalem and the rest of Judah because they sinned in this way.”

Quoted with permission from Omanson, Roger L. and Ellington, John E. A Handbook on 1-2 Chronicles, Volume 1. (UBS Helps for Translators). Miami: UBS, 2014. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .