2But he did what was evil in the sight of the LORD. He copied the disgusting practices of the nations that the LORD had driven out before the children of Israel.
3He built again the high places that his father Hezekiah had pulled down. He set up altars for the Baals, and made groves, and worshipped all the host of heaven, and served them.
4He also built altars in the house of the LORD, of which the LORD had said, "In Jerusalem my name will be for ever."
5And he built altars for all the host of heaven in the two courts of the house of the LORD.
6He made his children pass through the fire in the valley of the son of Hinnom. He also watched for signs and omens, and used spells, and used witchcraft, and dealt with a familiar spirit and with wizards. He did much evil in the sight of the LORD, and made him angry.
7He set a carved image, the idol that he had made, in the house of God, of which God had said to David and to his son Solomon, "In this house, and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, I will put my name for ever."
8"And I will never again move the foot of Israel out of the land that I have appointed for your fathers, if only they are careful to do all that I have commanded them, following the whole law and the statutes and the rules given through Moses."
9So Manasseh led Judah and the people of Jerusalem astray, so that they did worse than the nations the LORD had destroyed before the children of Israel.
10The LORD spoke to Manasseh and to his people, but they would not listen.
11So the LORD brought against them the captains of the army of the king of Assyria. They took Manasseh among the thorns, and bound him with chains, and carried him to Babylon.
12When he was in trouble, he begged the LORD his God for help, and he humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers.
13He prayed to him. And God listened to his plea, and heard his prayer, and brought him back to Jerusalem into his kingdom. Then Manasseh knew that the LORD was God.
14After this he built a wall outside the city of David, on the west side of Gihon, in the valley, right up to the entrance at the fish gate. It went round Ophel, and he made it very high. And he put army captains in all the walled cities of Judah.
15He took away the foreign gods, and the idol, out of the house of the LORD. He removed all the altars that he had built on the mountain of the house of the LORD and in Jerusalem, and threw them out of the city.
16He repaired the altar of the LORD, and offered on it peace offerings and thank offerings, and commanded Judah to serve the LORD God of Israel.
17But the people still sacrificed in the high places, though only to the LORD their God.
18The 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, are written in the book of the kings of Israel.
19His prayer too, and how God listened to him, and all his sin, and his unfaithfulness, and the places where he built high places and set up groves and carved images, before he humbled himself, are written among the sayings of the seers.
20So Manasseh slept with his fathers, and they buried him in his own house. And his son Amon became king in his place.
21Amon was twenty-two years old when he became king, and he reigned two years in Jerusalem.
22But he did what was evil in the sight of the LORD, as his father Manasseh had done. Amon sacrificed to all the carved images that his father Manasseh had made, and served them.
23He did not humble himself before the LORD, as his father Manasseh had humbled himself. Instead Amon sinned more and more.
24His servants plotted against him, and killed him in his own house.
25But the people of the land killed all those who had plotted against king Amon, and the people of the land made his son Josiah king in his place.