2 Chronicles 33

1Manasseh became king at the age of twelve and reigned fifty-five years in Jerusalem.

2He did evil in the sight of Yahweh, like the abominations of the nations whom Yahweh had driven out before the children of Israel.

3He returned and built the high places that Hezekiah his father had demolished, erected altars for the Baals, made Asherahs, bowed down to the whole host of heaven, and served them.

4He built altars in the house of Yahweh, of which Yahweh had said, "My name shall be in Jerusalem forever."

5He built altars for all the host of heaven in the two courts of the house of Yahweh.

6He made his sons pass through the fire in the Valley of Ben-Hinnom, practiced soothsaying, divination, and sorcery, consulted mediums and spiritists, doing much evil in Yahweh's sight to provoke him to anger.

7He set the carved idol he had made in the house of God, about which God said to David and to Solomon his son, "In this house and Jerusalem, which I chose from all the tribes of Israel, I will put my name forever."

8I will not again remove the foot of Israel from the land that I appointed for your fathers, only if they take care to do all that I commanded them—all the law, the statutes, and the judgments by the hand of Moses.

9Manasseh led Judah and Jerusalem's inhabitants astray to commit worse evil than the nations Yahweh had destroyed before the sons of Israel.

10Yahweh spoke to Manasseh and his people, but they paid no attention.

11Yahweh brought captains of the army of Assyria's king against them, who seized Manasseh among thorns, bound him with bronze chains, and led him to Babylon.

12When he was in distress, he entreated Yahweh his God and humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers.

13He prayed to him; God was entreated by him, heard his plea, and restored him to Jerusalem, to his kingdom. Then Manasseh knew that Yahweh is God.

14After that he built an outer wall extending to David's city westward to Gihon in the valley and to the approach at the Fish Gate; he surrounded Ophel and raised it very high, and appointed mighty captains in all the fortified cities of Judah.

15He removed the foreign gods and the idol from the house of Yahweh, along with all the altars that he had built on the mount of the house of Yahweh and in Jerusalem, and hurled them outside the city.

16He established and built the altar of Yahweh, offered peace offerings and thank offerings on it, and commanded Judah to serve Yahweh, the God of Israel.

17Nevertheless, the people still offered sacrifices on the high places, yet only to Yahweh their God.

18Manasseh's remaining deeds, his prayer to his God, and the words of the seers who spoke to him in the name of Yahweh, God of Israel—behold, they stand among the deeds of Israel's kings.

19His prayer and his supplication, all his sin and his unfaithfulness, and the places where he built high places and set up the Asherim and carved images before he humbled himself—behold, they are written among the words of the seers.

20Manasseh lay down with his fathers, and they buried him in his house, and Amon his son reigned in his place.

21Amon was twenty-two years old when he became king, and he reigned two years in Jerusalem.

22He did evil in the eyes of Yahweh, as his father Manasseh had done; Amon sacrificed to all the carved images his father Manasseh had made and served them.

23He did not humble himself before Yahweh as Manasseh his father had humbled himself, but Amon himself multiplied sin.

24His servants plotted against him and killed him in his house.

25The people of the land struck down all the conspirators against King Amon, and the people of the land made his son Josiah king in his place.