1. Manasseh was twelve years old when he began to rule. He ruled 55 years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Hephzibah.
2. Manasseh did what the Lord said was wrong. He did the terrible things the other nations did. (And the Lord forced those nations to leave their country when the Israelites came.)
3. Manasseh rebuilt the high places that his father Hezekiah had destroyed. He also built altars for Baal and made an Asherah pole, just as King Ahab of Israel had done. Manasseh worshiped and served the stars of heaven.
4. He built altars to honor false gods in the Lord’S Temple. (This is the place the Lord was talking about when he said, “I will put my name in Jerusalem.”)
5. Manasseh built altars for the stars of heaven in the two courtyards of the Lord’S Temple.
6. He sacrificed his own son and burned him on the altar. He used different ways of trying to know the future. He visited mediums and wizards. Manasseh did more and more things that the Lord saw as evil, which made the Lord angry.
7. Manasseh made a carved statue of Asherah. He put this statue in the Temple. The Lord had said to David and to David’s son Solomon about this Temple: “I have chosen Jerusalem from all the cities in Israel. I will put my name in the Temple in Jerusalem forever.
8. I will not cause the Israelites to leave the land that I gave to their ancestors. I will let the people stay in their land if they obey everything I commanded them and all the teachings that my servant Moses gave them.”
9. But the people did not listen to God. Manasseh did more evil things than all the nations that lived in Canaan before Israel came. And the Lord destroyed those nations when the Israelites came to take their land.
10. The Lord used his servants the prophets to say this:
11. “King Manasseh of Judah has done these hated things and has done more evil than the Amorites before him. He also has caused Judah to sin because of his idols.
12. So the Lord, the God of Israel, says, ‘Look! I will bring so much trouble against Jerusalem and Judah that anyone who hears about it will be shocked.
13. I will stretch the measuring line of Samaria and the plumb line of Ahab’s family over Jerusalem. A man wipes a dish, and then he turns it upside down. I will do that to Jerusalem.
14. There will still be a few of my people left, but I will leave them. I will give them to their enemies. Their enemies will take them as prisoners—they will be like the valuable things soldiers take in war.