Manasseh (Chronicles)

^1aManasseh was twelve years old when he became king, and he reigned fifty-five years in Jerusalem. ²He did what was displeasing to the Lord, following the abhorrent practices of the nations that the Lord had dispossessed before the Israelites. ³He rebuilt the shrines that his father Hezekiah had demolished; he erected altars for the Baals and made sacred posts. He bowed down to all the host of heaven and worshiped them, ⁴and he built altars [to them] in the House of the Lord, of which the Lord had said, “My name will be in Jerusalem forever.” ⁵He built altars for all the host of heaven in the two courts of the House of the Lord. ⁶He consigned his sons to the fire in the Valley of Ben-hinnom, and he practiced soothsaying, divination, and sorcery, and consulted ghosts and familiar spirits; he did much that was displeasing to the Lord in order to vex Him. ⁷He placed a sculptured image that he made in the House of God, of which God had said to David and to his son Solomon, “In this House and in Jerusalem, which I chose out of all the tribes of Israel, I will establish My name forever. ⁸And I will never again remove the feet of Israel from the land that I assigned to their fathers, if only they observe faithfully all that I have commanded them—all the teaching and the laws and the rules given by Moses.” ⁹Manasseh led Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem astray into evil greater than that done by the nations that the Lord had destroyed before the Israelites.

¹⁰The Lord spoke to Manasseh and his people, but they would not pay heed, ¹¹so the Lord brought against them the officers of the army of the king of Assyria, who took Manasseh captive in manacles, bound him in fetters, and led him off to Babylon. ¹²In his distress, he entreated the Lord his God and humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers. ¹³He prayed to Him, and He granted his prayer, heard his plea, and returned him to Jerusalem to his kingdom. Then Manasseh knew that the Lord alone was God. ¹⁴Afterward he built the outer wall of the City of David west of Gihon in the wadi on the way to the Fish Gate, and it encircled Ophel; he raised it very high. He also placed army officers in all the fortified towns of Judah. ¹⁵He removed the foreign gods and the image from the House of the Lord, as well as all the altars that he had built on the Mount of the House of the Lord and in Jerusalem, and dumped them outside the city. ¹⁶He rebuilt the altar of the Lord and offered on it sacrifices of well-being and thanksgiving, and commanded the people of Judah to worship the Lord God of Israel. ¹⁷To be sure, the people continued sacrificing at the shrines, but only to the Lord their God.

¹⁸The other events of Manasseh’s reign, 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 are found in the chronicles of the kings of Israel. ¹⁹His prayer and how it was granted to him, the whole account of his sin and trespass, and the places in which he built shrines and installed sacred posts and images before he humbled himself are recorded in the words of Hozai.^{b 20}Manasseh slept with his fathers and was buried on his palace grounds; his son Amon succeeded him as king.