2 Chronicles 33

¹Manasseh was twelve years old when he became king, and he reigned fifty-five years in Jerusalem.

²And he did what was bad in the sight of the LORD, like the abominations of the nations whom the LORD had driven out before the people of Israel.

³And he turned back and rebuilt the high places that Hezekiah his father had torn down, and he set up altars to the Baals, and he made Asherah poles, and he bowed down to all the host of heaven and served them.

⁴And he built altars in the house of the LORD, of which the LORD had said, 'In Jerusalem my name will be forever.'

⁵And he built altars for all the host of heaven in the two courts of the house of the LORD.

⁶And he himself made his sons pass through the fire in the Valley of Ben-Hinnom, and he practiced augury and divination by omens and sorcery, and he set up a medium and a spiritist. He multiplied doing what is evil in the eyes of the LORD, provoking him to anger.

⁷And he placed the carved idol-image which he had made in the house of God, about which God had said to David and to Solomon his son, 'In this house and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen from all the tribes of Israel, I will place my name forever.'

⁸and I will no longer remove the foot of Israel from the land that I established for your fathers — only if they are careful to do all that I commanded them, according to all the law, the statutes, and the ordinances given by the hand of Moses.

⁹And Manasseh led Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem astray, to do more evil than the nations that the LORD had destroyed from before the sons of Israel.

¹⁰And the LORD spoke to Manasseh and to his people, but they did not listen.

¹¹And the LORD brought against them the commanders of the army of the king of Assyria, and they captured Manasseh with hooks, and bound him with bronze fetters, and led him to Babylon.

¹²And when he was in distress, he sought the favor of the LORD his God and humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers.

¹³And he prayed to him, and he was moved by his entreaty, and he heard his supplication and brought him back to Jerusalem, to his kingdom. Then Manasseh knew that the Lord, He is God.

¹⁴And after this he built an outer wall for the city of David, westward by the Gihon in the valley, and as far as the entrance of the Fish Gate, and encircled the Ophel and raised it very high. And he placed military commanders in all the fortified cities in Judah.

¹⁵And he removed the foreign gods and the image from the house of the LORD, and all the altars he had built on the mountain of the house of the LORD and in Jerusalem, and cast them outside the city.

¹⁶He restored and rebuilt the altar of the LORD, and he sacrificed upon it peace offerings and thanksgiving offerings, and he commanded Judah to serve the LORD, the God of Israel.

¹⁷But the people were still sacrificing at the high places, only to the LORD their God.

¹⁸And the rest of the acts of Manasseh and his prayer to his God, and the words of the seers who spoke to him in the name of the LORD, the God of Israel — they are in the annals of the kings of Israel.

¹⁹And his prayer and how God was entreated by him, and all his sin and unfaithfulness, and the sites where he built high places and erected Asherah poles and idols before he humbled himself — behold, they are written in the words of his seers.

²⁰And Manasseh lay down with his fathers, and they buried him in his house; and Amon his son reigned in his place.

²¹Amon was twenty-two years old when he became king, and he reigned two years in Jerusalem.

²²And he did what is evil in the eyes of the LORD, just as Manasseh his father had done. And to all the idols that Manasseh his father had made, Amon sacrificed and served them.

²³But he did not humble himself before the LORD as Manasseh his father had humbled himself, for he, Amon, multiplied guilt.

²⁴And his servants conspired against him and put him to death in his house.

²⁵And the people of the land struck down all those who had conspired against King Amon, and the people of the land made Josiah his son king in his place.