Manasseh (Samuel-Kings)

¹Manasseh was twelve years old when he became king, and he reigned fifty-five years in Jerusalem; his mother’s name was Hephzibah. 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 destroyed; he erected altars for Baal and made a sacred post, as King Ahab of Israel had done. He bowed down to all the host of heaven and worshiped them, ⁴and he built altars for them in the House of the Lord, of which the Lord had said, “I will establish My name in Jerusalem.” ⁵He built altars for all the hosts of heaven in the two courts of the House of the Lord. ⁶He consigned his son to the fire; he practiced soothsaying and divination, and consulted ghosts and familiar spirits; he did much that was displeasing to the Lord, to vex Him. ⁷The sculptured image of Asherah that he made he placed in the House concerning which the Lord 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 not again cause the feet of Israel to wander from the land that I gave to their fathers, if they will but faithfully observe all that I have commanded them—all the Teachings with which My servant Moses charged them.” ⁹But they did not obey, and Manasseh led them astray to do greater evil than the nations that the Lord had destroyed before the Israelites. ¹⁰Therefore the Lord spoke through His servants the prophets: ¹¹“Because King Manasseh of Judah has done these abhorrent things—he has outdone in wickedness all that the Amorites did before his time—and because he led Judah to sin with his fetishes, ¹²assuredly, thus said the Lord, the God of Israel: I am going to bring such a disaster on Jerusalem and Judah that both ears of everyone who hears about it will tingle. ¹³I will ^a-apply to Jerusalem the measuring line of Samaria and the weights of the House of Ahab;^-aI will wipe Jerusalem clean as one wipes a dish and turns it upside down. ¹⁴And I will cast off the remnant of My own people and deliver them into the hands of their enemies. They shall be plunder and prey to all their enemies ¹⁵because they have done what is displeasing to Me and have been vexing Me from the day that their fathers came out of Egypt to this day.”

¹⁶Moreover, Manasseh put so many innocent persons to death that he filled Jerusalem [with blood] from end to end—besides the sin he committed in causing Judah to do what was displeasing to the Lord.