2 Chronicles33

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

²He did evil in the sight of the Lord according to the abominations of the nations whom the Lord dispossessed before the sons of Israel.

³For he rebuilt the high places which his father Hezekiah had torn down; he also set up altars for the Baals and made Asherim, and he worshiped all the heavenly lights and served them.

⁴He built altars in the house of the Lord of which the Lord had said, “My name shall be in Jerusalem forever.”

⁵He built altars for all the heavenly lights in the two courtyards of the house of the Lord.

⁶He also made his sons pass through the fire in the Valley of Ben-hinnom; and he practiced witchcraft, used divination, practiced sorcery, and dealt with mediums and spiritists. He did much evil in the sight of the Lord, provoking Him to anger.

⁷Then he put the carved image of the idol which he had made in the house of God, of which God had said to David and his son Solomon, “In this house and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen from all the tribes of Israel, I will put My name forever;

⁸and I will not remove the foot of Israel again from the land which I have appointed for your fathers, if only they will take care to do everything that I have commanded them according to all the Law, the statutes, and the ordinances given through Moses.”

⁹So Manasseh encouraged Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem to do more evil than the nations whom the Lord destroyed before the sons of Israel.

¹⁰So the Lord spoke to Manasseh and his people, but they paid no attention.

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

¹²When he was in distress, he appeased the Lord his God and humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers.

¹³When he prayed to Him, He was moved by him and heard his pleading, and brought him back to Jerusalem to his kingdom. Then Manasseh knew that the Lord alone is God.

¹⁴Now after this he built the outer wall of the city of David on the west side of Gihon, in the valley, up to the entrance of the Fish Gate; and he encircled the Ophel with it and made it very high. Then he put army commanders in all the fortified cities in Judah.

¹⁵He also removed the foreign gods and the idol from the house of the Lord, as well as all the altars which he had built on the mountain of the house of the Lord and in Jerusalem, and he threw them outside the city.

¹⁶He set up the altar of the Lord and sacrificed peace offerings and thanksgiving offerings on it; and he ordered Judah to serve the Lord God of Israel.

¹⁷However, the people still sacrificed on the high places, although only to the Lord their God.

¹⁸Now 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 God of Israel, behold, they are among the records of the kings of Israel.

¹⁹His prayer also and how God was moved by him, and all his sin, his unfaithfulness, and the sites on which he built high places and erected the Asherim and the carved images, before he humbled himself, behold, they are written in the records of Hozai.

²⁰So Manasseh lay down with his fathers, and they buried him in his own house. And his son Amon became king in his place.

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

²²He did evil in the sight of the Lord, just as his father Manasseh had done, and Amon sacrificed to all the carved images which his father Manasseh had made, and he served them.

²³Furthermore, he did not humble himself before the Lord as his father Manasseh had done, but Amon multiplied his guilt.

²⁴Finally, his servants conspired against him and put him to death in his own house.

²⁵But the people of the land killed all the conspirators against King Amon, and the people of the land made his son Josiah king in his place.