II Chronicles Chapter 33

II Chronicles 33 — English translation

Translation: THE JPS TANAKH: Gender-Sensitive Edition. Verse numbers match the Hebrew text below.

1. 1Manasseh was twelve years old when he became king, and he reigned fifty-five years in Jerusalem.
2. 2He did what was displeasing to G OD , following the abhorrent practices of the nations that G OD had dispossessed before the Israelites.
3. 3He rebuilt the shrines that his father Hezekiah had demolished; he erected altars for the Baals and made sacred posts. He bowed down to all the host of heaven and worshiped them,
4. 4and he built altars [to them] in the House of G OD , of which G OD had said, “My name will be in Jerusalem forever.”
5. 5He built altars for all the host of heaven in the two courts of the House of G OD .
6. 6He consigned his sons to the fire in the Valley of Ben-hinnom, and he practiced soothsaying, divination, and sorcery, and consulted ghosts and familiar spirits; he did much that was displeasing to G OD in order to provoke anger.
7. 7He placed a sculptured image that he 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 chose out of all the tribes of Israel, I will establish My name forever.
8. 8And I will never again remove the feet of Israel from the land that I assigned to their ancestors, if only they observe faithfully all that I have commanded them—all the teaching and the laws and the rules given by Moses.”
9. 9Manasseh led Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem astray into evil greater than that done by the nations that G OD had destroyed before the Israelites.
10. 10G OD spoke to Manasseh and his people, but they would not pay heed,
11. 11so G OD brought against them the officers of the army of the king of Assyria, who took Manasseh captive in manacles, bound him in fetters, and led him off to Babylon.
12. 12In his distress, he entreated the E TERNAL his God and humbled himself greatly before the God of his ancestors.
13. 13He prayed to [God], who granted his prayer, heard his plea, and returned him to Jerusalem to his kingdom. Then Manasseh knew that the E TERNAL alone was God.
14. 14Afterward he built the outer wall of the City of David west of Gihon in the wadi on the way to the Fish Gate, and it encircled Ophel; he raised it very high. He also placed army officers in all the fortified towns of Judah.
15. 15He removed the foreign gods and the image from the House of G OD , as well as all the altars that he had built on the Mount of the House of G OD and in Jerusalem, and dumped them outside the city.
16. 16He rebuilt the altar of G OD and offered on it sacrifices of well-being and thanksgiving, and commanded the people of Judah to worship the E TERNAL God of Israel.
17. 17To be sure, the people continued sacrificing at the shrines, but only to the E TERNAL their God.
18. 18The other events of Manasseh’s reign, and his prayer to his God, and the words of the seers who spoke to him in the name of the E TERNAL God of Israel are found in the chronicles of the kings of Israel.
19. 19His prayer and how it was granted to him, the whole account of his sin and trespass, and the places in which he built shrines and installed sacred posts and images before he humbled himself are recorded in the words of Hozai.
20. 20Manasseh rested with his ancestors and was buried on his palace grounds; his son Amon succeeded him as king.
21. 21Amon was twenty-two years old when he became king, and he reigned two years in Jerusalem.
22. 22He did what was displeasing to G OD , as his father Manasseh had done. Amon sacrificed to all the idols that his father Manasseh had made and worshiped them.
23. 23He did not humble himself before G OD , as his father Manasseh had humbled himself; instead, Amon incurred much guilt.
24. 24His courtiers conspired against him and killed him in his palace.
25. 25But the people of the land struck down all who had conspired against King Amon; and the people of the land made his son Josiah king in his stead.

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