2 Chronicles - Chapter 33

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 is displeasing to Yahweh, copying the disgusting practices of the nations whom Yahweh had dispossessed for the Israelites.

³ He rebuilt the high places which his father Hezekiah had demolished, he set up altars to Baal and made sacred poles, he worshipped the whole array of heaven and served it.

⁴ He built altars in the Temple of Yahweh, of which Yahweh had said, 'My name will be in Jerusalem for ever.'

⁵ He built altars to the whole array of heaven in the two courts of the Temple of Yahweh.

⁶ He caused his sons to pass through the fire of sacrifice in the Valley of Ben-Hinnom. He practised soothsaying, divination and sorcery, and had dealings with mediums and spirit-guides. He did very many more things displeasing to Yahweh, thus provoking his anger.

⁷ He put a sculpted image, an idol which he had had made, inside the Temple of which God had said to David and his son Solomon, 'In this Temple and in Jerusalem, the city which I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, I shall put my name for ever.

⁸ Nor shall I ever again remove Israel's foot from the soil on which I established your ancestors on condition that they were careful to observe all I commanded them as laid down in the whole Law, the statutes and the ordinances, given through Moses.'

⁹ But Manasseh misled Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem into doing worse things than the nations which Yahweh had destroyed for the Israelites.

¹⁰ When Yahweh spoke to Manasseh and his people, they would not listen.

¹¹ Yahweh then brought down on them the generals of the king of Assyria's army who captured Manasseh with hooks, put him in chains and took him to Babylon.

¹² While in his distress, he placated Yahweh his God by genuinely humbling himself before the God of his ancestors.

¹³ When he prayed to him, he was moved by his entreaty, heard his supplication and brought him back to Jerusalem to his kingdom. Manasseh realised then that Yahweh is God.

¹⁴ Afterwards, he rebuilt the outer wall of the City of David, to the west of Gihon, in the valley, up to the Fish Gate and round the Ophel, and made it very much higher. And he stationed military governors in all the fortified towns of Judah.

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

¹⁶ He repaired the altar of Yahweh and offered communion sacrifices and thanksgiving offerings on it, and commanded Judah to serve Yahweh, God of Israel.

¹⁷ The people, however, went on sacrificing at the high places, although only to Yahweh their God.

¹⁸ The rest of the history of Manasseh, his prayer to his God, and the prophecies of the seers who spoke to him in the name of Yahweh, God of Israel, can be found in the Annals of the Kings of Israel.

¹⁹ His prayer and how God was moved by his entreaty, all his sins, his infidelity, the sites where he built high places and set up sacred poles and idols before humbling himself, are set down in the records of Hozai.

²⁰ Then Manasseh fell asleep with his ancestors and was buried in the garden of his palace. His son Amon succeeded him.

²¹ Amon was twenty-two years old when he came to the throne, and he reigned for two years in Jerusalem.

²² He did what is displeasing to Yahweh, as his father Manasseh had done, for Amon sacrificed to all the images which his father Manasseh had made, and served them.

²³ He did not humble himself before Yahweh as his father Manasseh had done; on the contrary, Amon wilfully added to his guilt.

²⁴ His retinue plotted against him and killed him in his own palace.

²⁵ The people of the country, however, slaughtered all those who had plotted against King Amon and proclaimed his son Josiah as his successor.

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