 1 Manasseh was twelve years old when he began to reign, and he reigned 55 years in Jerusalem. 2 But he did the evil in the sight of the Lord, like the abominations of the heathen whom the Lord had cast out before the children of Israel. 3 For he built again the high places that Hezekiah his father had broken down, and he reared up altars for the Baals, and made Asherahs, and worshiped all the host of heaven, and served them. 4 He built altars in the house of the Lord, of which the Lord had said, In Jerusalem shall my name be forever. 5 He built altars for all the host of Heaven in the two courts of the house of the Lord. 6 He caused his children to pass through the fire in the valley of the son of Hinnom. He also used fortune telling+ and divination+ and witchcraft and mediums+ and wizards. He did much evil in the sight of the Lord in order to provoke Him to anger. 7 He set a carved image, the idol that he had made, in the house of God, of which God had said to David and to Solomon his son, In this house, and in Jerusalem that I have chosen before all the tribes of Israel, I will put my name forever. 8 Nor will I any longer remove the foot of Israel from out of the land that I have set apart for your fathers if they will do all that I have commanded them according to the whole law and the statutes and the ordinances by the hand of Moses. 9 Manasseh made Judah and the people of Jerusalem to err, to do worse than the nations whom the Lord had destroyed before the children of Israel. 10 The Lord spoke to Manasseh and to His people, but they would not listen. 11 The Lord brought on them the commanders of the army of the king of Assyria, who took Manasseh among the thorns and bound him with chains and carried him to Babylon. 12 When he was in affliction, he sought the Lord his God, and humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers. 13 He prayed to Him, and He was entreated of him, and heard his prayer, and brought him again to Jerusalem into his kingdom. And Manasseh knew that the Lord is God. 14 After this he built a wall outside the city of David on the west side of Gihon in the valley to the entrance of the Fish Gate and went around Ophel and raised it to a very great height. He put army commanders in all the fortified cities of Judah. 15 He took away the strange gods, and the idol out of the house of the Lord, and all the altars that he had built in the mountain of the house of the Lord, and in Jerusalem, and threw them out of the city. 16 He repaired the altar of the Lord and sacrificed on it peace offerings and thank offerings. And he commanded Judah to serve the Lord God of Israel. 17 But the people still sacrificed in the high places, but only to the Lord their God. 18 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 written in the book of the kings of Israel; 19 and his prayer, and his entreaty, and all his sin and his trespass, and the places in which he built high places and set up Asherahs and graven images, before he was humbled, behold, they are written among the Matters of the Seers. 20 Manasseh slept with his fathers, and they buried him in his own house. And his son Amon reigned in his place. 21 Amon was 22 years old when he began to reign, and he reigned two years in Jerusalem. 22 He did evil in the eyes of the Lord, as his father Manasseh did. And to all the graven images that his father Manasseh had made, Amon sacrificed, and served them. 23 He did not bow before the Lord, like the humbling of his father Manasseh. For Amon himself multiplied guilt. 24 His servants conspired against him and killed him in his own house. 25 The people of the land killed all those who conspired against king Amon. And the people of the land made his son Josiah to reign in his place.
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