Manasseh
1 Manasseh was twelve years old when he came to the throne and he reigned for fifty-five years in Jerusalem.
2 He did what was evil in the eyes of Yah weh, and followed the disgusting practices of the nations that Yahweh had removed from the land before giving it to Israel,
3 He rebuilt the High places his father Hezekiah had wrecked; he set up altars to the Baals and made sacred trunks. He wor shiped the whole array of heaven and served it.
4 He built altars in Yahweh’s House of which Yahweh had said, “In Jerusalem shall my Name be forever.”
5 He built altars to the whole array of heaven in the two courts of Yahweh’s House.
6 He caused his sons to pass through the fire in the Valley of Ben hinnom. He practiced soothsaying, magic and witchcraft, and introduced necromancers and wizards. He did many things displeasing to Yahweh, thus provoking his anger.
7 He placed the idol he had made in the house of which God had said to David and to his son Solo mon, “In this house and in Jerusalem, the city I chose out of all the tribes of Israel, I will give my Name a home forever.
8 I will no longer turn Israel’s footsteps away from the land I assigned to their ancestors, pro vided they observe all I have ordered them in ac cordance with the whole Law, the statutes and the ordinances, given through Moses.”
9 Manasseh led Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem astray, so that they did more evil than those nations Yahweh had destroyed before the Israelites.
10 Yahweh spoke to Manasseh and his people, but they paid no attention.
11 Then Yahweh sent the generals of the king of Assyria against them, who captured Manasseh with hooks, put him in chains and led him away to Baby lon.
12 In his distress he sought to appease Yahweh his God. Humbling himself deeply before the God of his ancestors, he prayed to him,
13 and God changed his mind. Hearing his plea he allowed him to come back to Jerusalem and reign again. Manasseh realised then that Yahweh is God.
14 After that he rebuilt the outer wall of the Citadel of David, west of Gihon in the wadi, as far as the Fish Gate; it encircled the Ophel, and he increased its height very considerably. He stationed military governors in all the fortified towns of Judah.
15 He removed the alien gods and the idol from Yahweh’s House and all the altars he had built on the mountain of Yahweh’s House and in Jerusalem, and threw them out of the city.
16 He rebuilt the altar of Yahweh and offered peace offerings and praise offerings on it, and ordered Judah to serve Yahweh the God of Israel;
17 however, the people continued to sacrifice on the High places, although only to Yahweh their God.
18 The rest of the history of Manas seh, his prayer to God, and the words of the seers who spoke to him in the name of Yahweh the God of Israel, can be found in the Annals of the Kings of Israel.
19 His prayer and how God heard his prayer, all his sins, his unfaithfulness, the sites where he built High places and set up sacred trunks and idols before he humbled himself are recorded in the Annals of Hozai.
20 Then Manasseh rested with his ancestors and was buried in his palace. His son Amon succeeded him.
21 Amon was twenty-two years old when he became king and he reigned for two years in Jeru salem.
22 He did what is displeasing to Yahweh, as Manasseh his father had done. Amon offered sacrifice and worship to all the idols Manasseh his father had made,
23 but he did not humble himself before Yahweh like Manasseh his father had done; instead he made the guilt of Judah worse.
24 His officers plot ted against him and killed him in his palace.
25 But the people of the nation struck down all those who had plotted against King Amon and proclaimed his son Josiah as his successor.