Chapter 21

Reign of Manasseh. ¹ Manasseh was twelve years old when he began to reign, and he reigned for fifty-five years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Hephzibah.

² He did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, practicing the abominations of the nations whom the Lord cast out before the Israelites. ³ He rebuilt the high places that Hezekiah, his father, had destroyed. He raised up altars to Baal, and he made an Asherah, just as Ahab, the king of Israel, had done. He also worshiped the hosts of heaven^[a] and served them. ⁴ He built altars in the temple of the Lord of which the Lord had stated, “I will place my name in Jerusalem.” ⁵ He built altars for the hosts of heaven in the two courts of the temple of the Lord. ⁶ He burned his son in flames, practiced witchcraft, used divination, and cooperated with mediums and wizards. He did horrible things in the sight of the Lord, provoking the Lord to anger. ⁷ He set up a carved image of the Asherah in the temple about which the Lord had said to David and to Solomon, his son, “In this temple and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen from out of the tribes of Israel, I will place my name forever, ⁸ nor will I make the feet of Israel wander from the land that I have given to their fathers if only they will be careful to do everything that I have commanded them, everything according to the law that Moses, my servant, gave them.”

⁹ But they would not listen, and Manasseh enticed them to do more evil than the nations that the Lord had destroyed before the Israelites had done.

¹⁰ The Lord therefore spoke through his servant, the prophets, saying, ¹¹ “Manasseh, the king of Judah, has committed these abominations, doing worse things than the Amorites who preceded him, causing Judah to sin with his idols. ¹² Therefore, thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: Behold, I am bringing a terrible disaster upon Jerusalem and Judah that is so bad that the ears of those who hear about it will tingle. ^13 [b]I will stretch out over Jerusalem the measuring line that I used against Samaria and the plumb line I used against the house of Ahab. ¹⁴ I will wipe out Jerusalem as one wipes out a dish, wiping it out and turning it over. I will abandon the remnant of my inheritance, and I will deliver them into the hands of their enemies. They will be plunder and booty to all of their enemies ¹⁵ for they have done what is evil in my sight, provoking me to anger from the day that their fathers came forth from Egypt even up to the present day.”

¹⁶ Manasseh had shed so much blood that it covered Jerusalem from one end to the other. He caused Judah to sin, doing what was evil in the sight of the Lord.

¹⁷ As for the other deeds of Manasseh, what he did, and the sins that he committed, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah?

¹⁸ Manasseh slept with his fathers, and he was buried in his palace gardens, the Garden of Uzza.

Reign of Amon. Amon, his son, then reigned in his stead. ¹⁹ Amon was twenty-two years old when he began to reign, and he reigned for two years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Meshullemeth. She was the daughter of Haruz from Jotbah.

²⁰ He did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, as his father Manasseh had done. ²¹ He walked in all of the ways of his father. He served the idols that his father had served, and he worshiped them. ²² He abandoned the Lord, the God of his fathers, and he did not walk in the ways of the Lord.

²³ Amon’s servants plotted against him, and they killed him in his own palace. ²⁴ The people of the land then plotted against all of those who killed King Ahab, and the people of the land made Josiah, his son, king in his stead.

²⁵ As for the other deeds of Amon, what he did, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah?

²⁶ He was buried in his own grave in the Garden of Uzza, and his son Josiah reigned in his stead.