1Manasseh was twelve when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem for fifty-five years. His mother's name was Hephzibah.

2He did what was evil in the Lord's sight by following the disgusting pagan practices of the nations that the Lord had driven out before the Israelites.

3He rebuilt the high places his father Hezekiah had destroyed, and he erected altars for Baal. He made an Asherah idol pole, just as Ahab, king of Israel, had done, and he worshiped and served the sun, moon, and stars.

4He set up pagan altars in the Lord's Temple, right where the Lord had said, “I will place my name in Jerusalem forever.”

5He set up altars to worship the sun, moon, and stars in the two courtyards of the Lord's Temple.

6He even he sacrificed his own son as a burnt offering, and used fortune-telling and witchcraft, and he dealt with mediums and with spiritists. He did a great deal of evil in the Lord's sight, making the Lord angry.

7He took the Asherah idol pole he had made and placed in the Temple. This was the place referred to by the Lord when he told David and Solomon, his son, “In this Temple and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen from all the tribes of Israel, I will place my name forever.

8I will never again make the Israelites wander from the land I gave their forefathers if they are careful to follow everything I have ordered them to do—the whole law that my servant Moses gave them.”

9The people refused to listen and Manasseh led them to sin so that the evil they did was even worse than the nations the Lord had destroyed before the Israelites.

10The Lord said through his servants the prophets:

11“Since Manasseh, king of Judah, has committed all these disgusting sins, doing even more evil things than the Amorites who lived before him, and by his encouragement of idol worship has made Judah sin,

12this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: Watch out! I am going to bring down upon Jerusalem and Judah such a disaster that it will cause ringing in the ears of everyone who hears it.

13I will extend over Jerusalem the measuring line used against Samaria and the plumb line used against the house of Ahab, ⁴¹and I will wipe away Jerusalem as people wipe clean a bowl, wiping it and turning it upside down.

14I will give up on the remnant of my special people and hand them over to their enemies. They will be plunder and loot to all their enemies,

15because they have done what is evil in my sight, and have made me angry from the day their fathers left Egypt until today.”

16On top of that, Manasseh murdered so many innocent people that Jerusalem was filled from one side to the other with their blood. This was in addition to the sin that he had made Judah commit, doing evil in the Lord's sight.

17The rest of what happened in Manasseh's reign, all he did, as well as the sins he committed, are recorded in the Book of Chronicles of the Kings of Judah.

18Manasseh died, and was buried in his palace garden, the garden of Uzza. His son Amon succeeded him as king.

19Amon was twenty-two when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem for two years. His mother's name was Meshullemeth, daughter of Haruz. She came from Jotbah.

20He did what was evil in the Lord's sight, just as his father Manasseh had done.

21He followed all the ways of his father, and he served the idols his father had served, bowing down in worship to them.

22He rejected the Lord, the God of his forefathers, and did not follow the way of the Lord.

23Amon's officials plotted against him and murdered him in his royal palace.

24But then the people of the land killed everyone who had plotted against King Amon, and they chose his son Josiah king to succeed him.

25The rest of what happened in Amon's reign, and all he did, are recorded in the Book of Chronicles of the Kings of Judah.

26He was buried in his tomb in the garden of Uzza, and his son Josiah succeeded him as king.