1Manasseh was twelve years old when he began to reign, and he reigned fifty-five years in Jerusalem. 2He did what was evil in the sight of Yahweh, according to the abominable practices of the nations whom Yahweh drove out before the people of Israel. 3For he rebuilt the high places which his father Hezekiah had broken down, and erected altars to the Baals, and made Asherahs, and worshipped all the host of heaven, and served them. 4And he built altars in the house of Yahweh, of which Yahweh had said, "In Jerusalem shall my name be for ever." 5And he built altars for all the host of heaven in the two courts of the house of Yahweh. 6And he burned his sons as an offering in the valley of the son of Hinnom, and practiced soothsaying and augury and sorcery, and dealt with mediums and with wizards. He did much evil in the sight of Yahweh, provoking him to anger. 7And the image of the idol which he had made he set in the house of God, of which God 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 for ever; 8and I will no more remove the foot of Israel from the land which I appointed for your fathers, if only they will be careful to do all that I have commanded them, all the law, the statutes, and the ordinances given through Moses." 9Manasseh seduced Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, so that they did more evil than the nations whom Yahweh destroyed before the people of Israel.
10Yahweh spoke to Manasseh and to his people, but they gave no heed. 11Therefore Yahweh brought upon them the commanders of the army of the king of Assyria, who took Manasseh with hooks and bound him with fetters of bronze and brought him to Babylon. 12And when he was in distress he entreated the favour of Yahweh his God and humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers. 13He prayed to him, and God received his entreaty and heard his supplication and brought him again to Jerusalem into his kingdom. Then Manasseh knew that Yahweh was God.
14Afterwards he built an outer wall for the city of David west of Gihon, in the valley, and for the entrance into the Fish Gate, and carried it round Ophel, and raised it to a very great height; he also put commanders of the army in all the fortified cities in Judah. 15And he took away the foreign gods and the idol from the house of Yahweh, and all the altars that he had built on the mountain of the house of Yahweh and in Jerusalem, and he threw them outside of the city. 16He also restored the altar of Yahweh and offered upon it sacrifices of peace offerings and of thanksgiving; and he commanded Judah to serve Yahweh the God of Israel. 17Nevertheless the people still sacrificed at the high places, but 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 Chronicles of the Kings of Israel. 19And his prayer, and how God received his entreaty, and all his sin and his faithlessness, and the sites on which he built high places and set up the Asherim and the images, before he humbled himself, behold, they are written in the Chronicles of the Seers. 20So Manasseh slept with his fathers, and they buried him in his house; and Amon his son reigned in his stead.
21Amon was twenty-two years old when he began to reign, and he reigned two years in Jerusalem. 22He did what was evil in the sight of Yahweh, as Manasseh his father had done. Amon sacrificed to all the images that Manasseh his father had made, and served them. 23And he did not humble himself before Yahweh, as Manasseh his father had humbled himself, but this Amon incurred guilt more and more. 24And his servants conspired against him and killed him in his house. 25But the people of the land slew all those who had conspired against King Amon; and the people of the land made Josiah his son king in his stead.
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