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33
1 Manasseh was twelve when he became king, and he reigned in for Jerusalem fifty-five years. 2 He did evil in the Lord's sight by following the disgusting religious practices of the nations that the Lord had driven out before the Israelites. 3 He rebuilt the high places that his father Hezekiah had destroyed, and he made altars for the Baals and set up Asherah poles. He worshiped the sun, moon, and stars and served them.
4 He built altars in the Lord's Temple, about which the Lord had said, “I shall be honored in Jerusalem forever.” 5 He built these altars to worship the sun, moon, and stars in both courtyards of the Lord's Temple. 6 He sacrificed his children by burning them to death in the Valley of Ben-hinnom. He practiced sorcery, divination, and witchcraft, and visited mediums and spiritists. He did a great deal of evil in the Lord's sight, making him angry.
7 He took a pagan idol he had made and set it up in God's Temple, about which God had told David and his son Solomon, “I will be honored forever in this Temple and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen from all the tribes of Israel. 8 If the Israelites are careful to follow everything I have instructed them to do—all the laws, commandments, and regulations, given through Moses—then I will not make them leave the land I granted your forefathers.” 9 But Manasseh seduced Judah and the people of Jerusalem, leading them to commit even worse sins than the nations the Lord had destroyed before the Israelites occupied the land.
10 The Lord warned Manasseh and his people, but they ignored him. 11 So the Lord sent the armies of Assyria with their commanders to attack them. The Assyrians captured Manasseh, put a hook through his nose, put bronze shackles on him, and took him away to Babylon. 12 In his misery, he asked the Lord God for help, repenting for his arrogance before the God of his forefathers. 13 He prayed and prayed, and the Lord listened to his pleadings; so the Lord brought Manasseh back to Jerusalem and to his kingdom. Then Manasseh was convinced that the Lord is God.
14 After this, Manasseh rebuilt the outer wall of the City of David from west of Gihon in the valley to the Fish Gate, and around the hill of Ophel, and made it much higher. He also assigned army commanders to all the fortified towns of Judah. 15 He disposed of the foreign gods and the idol from the Lord's Temple, together with all the altars he had built on the Temple hill and in Jerusalem, throwing all of them outside the city. 16 Then he restored the altar of the Lord, and sacrificed friendship offerings and thank offerings on it, and he instructed Judah to worship the Lord, the God of Israel. 17 But the people still sacrificed on the high places, but only to the Lord their God.
18 The rest of what Manasseh did, along with his prayer to his God and what he was told by the seers who spoke on the Lord's behalf are recorded in the Book of the Kings of Israel. 19 His prayer and how God answered him, as well as all his sins and unfaithfulness, and where he built high places and set up Asherah poles and idols before he admitted he was wrong, are recorded in the Records of the Seers. 20 Manasseh died and was buried at his palace. His son Amon took over as king.
21 Amon was twenty-two when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem for two years. 22 He did evil in the Lord's sight just as his father Manasseh had. Amon worshiped and sacrificed to all the idols his father Manasseh had made. 23 However, he did not admit his pride before the Lord as his father Manasseh had done—in fact Amon made his guilt even worse. 24 Then Amon's officials plotted against him and killed him in his palace. 25 But the people of the land*“People of the land”: nothing more specific is given, but this could refer to land-owning nobles. If so, they probably were regents during the time Josiah was a child. killed everyone who had plotted against King Amon, and they made his son Josiah king.

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*33:25 “People of the land”: nothing more specific is given, but this could refer to land-owning nobles. If so, they probably were regents during the time Josiah was a child.

© 2018 Dr. Jonathan Gallagher