1Manasseh was twelve years old when he became king, and he reigned fifty-five years in Jerusalem.
2He did what was evil in the eyes of Yahweh, according to the abominations of the nations whom Yahweh had dispossessed before the sons of Israel.
3He turned back and rebuilt the high places that Hezekiah his father had torn down, and he raised up altars for the Baals and made Asherahs, and he bowed down to all the host of the heavens and served them.
4And he built altars in the house of Yahweh, of which Yahweh had said, ‘In Jerusalem my name shall be forever.’
5And he built altars to all the host of the heavens in the two courts of the house of Yahweh.
6He himself made his sons pass through the fire in the Valley of Ben-hinnom, and he practiced soothsaying, divination, and sorcery, and he dealt with mediums and spiritists. He did much evil in the eyes of Yahweh, provoking him to anger.
7And he set the carved image of 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, which I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, I will put my name forever.
8And I will not again remove the foot of Israel from the land that I established for your fathers—if only they take care to do all that I commanded them, all the law and the statutes and the judgments given by the hand of Moses.’
9But Manasseh led Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem astray, to do more evil than the nations whom Yahweh had destroyed before the sons of Israel.
10And Yahweh spoke to Manasseh and to his people, but they did not pay attention.
11So Yahweh brought against them the commanders of the army of the king of Assyria, and they captured Manasseh with hooks, and they bound him with bronze fetters and led him to Babylon.
12And when he was in distress, he entreated the face of Yahweh his God, and he humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers.
13And he prayed to him, and he was moved by his entreaty and heard his plea for grace, and he brought him back to Jerusalem, to his kingship. Then Manasseh knew that Yahweh, he is God.
14After this he built an outer wall for the city of David, on the west side toward Gihon in the valley, and to the entrance at the Fish Gate; and it went around the Ophel, and he raised it very high. And he placed commanders of the army in all the fortified cities in Judah.
15And he removed the foreign gods and the idol from the house of Yahweh, and all the altars that he had built on the mount of the house of Yahweh and in Jerusalem, and he threw them outside the city.
16And he restored the altar of Yahweh and sacrificed on it sacrifices of peace offerings and thank offerings, and he commanded Judah to serve Yahweh, the God of Israel.
17But the people still sacrificed on the high places—only to Yahweh their God.
18Now 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 Yahweh the God of Israel—behold, they are in the acts of the kings of Israel.
19And his prayer, and how God was moved by his entreaty, and all his sin and his unfaithfulness, and the places on which he built high places and set up the Asherahs and the carved images before he humbled himself—behold, they are written in the acts of Hozai.
20And Manasseh lay down with his fathers, and they buried him in his own 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 what was evil in the eyes of Yahweh, as Manasseh his father had done. To all the carved images that Manasseh his father had made Amon sacrificed, and he served them.
23And he did not humble himself before Yahweh as Manasseh his father had humbled himself, for he, Amon, multiplied guilt.
24And his servants conspired against him and put him to death in his own house.
25But the people of the land struck down all those who had conspired against King Amon, and the people of the land made Josiah his son king in his place.
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