8. I will never again remove Israel from the land that I set aside for their ancestors if they will obey all the commands, all the teachings, the ordinances, and the regulations ⌊I gave⌋ through Moses.”
9. Manasseh misled Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem so that they did more evil things than the nations that the Lord had destroyed when the Israelites arrived in the land.
10. When the Lord spoke to Manasseh and his people, they wouldn’t even pay attention.
11. So the Lord made the army commanders of the king of Assyria invade Judah. They took Manasseh captive, put a hook in his nose, put him in bronze shackles, and brought him to Babylon.
12. When he experienced this distress, he begged the Lord his God to be kind and humbled himself in front of the God of his ancestors.
13. He prayed to the Lord, and the Lord accepted his prayer and listened to his request. The Lord brought him back to his kingdom in Jerusalem. Then Manasseh knew that the Lord is God.
14. After this, Manasseh rebuilt the outer wall of the City of David from west of Gihon Spring in the valley to the entrance of Fish Gate. He made the wall go around the Ophel, and he built it very high. He put army commanders in every fortified city in Judah.
15. Manasseh got rid of the foreign gods and the idol in the Lord’s temple. He got rid of the altars he had built in the temple on the Lord’s mountain and in Jerusalem.
16. He built the Lord’s altar and sacrificed fellowship offerings and thank offerings on it. And he told Judah to serve the Lord God of Israel.
17. The people continued to sacrifice at the illegal places of worship, but they sacrificed only to the Lord their God.