1 Manasseh was twelve when he became king, and he ruled fifty-five years in Jerusalem.
2 He did evil in the LORD's sight, following the detestable practices of the nations the LORD had driven out before the children of Israel.
3 He rebuilt the high places his father Hezekiah had demolished, put up altars to the Baals, made Asherim, and bowed down to the whole army of heaven and served them.
4 He built altars in the house of the LORD, of which the LORD had said, "My name will be in Jerusalem forever."
5 He built altars to the whole army of heaven in both courts of the house of the LORD.
6 He made his sons pass through the fire in the Valley of Ben-hinnom. He practiced fortune-telling, omens, and sorcery, and consulted mediums and spiritists. He did a great deal of evil in the LORD's sight, provoking him to anger.
7 He placed the carved idol he had made in God's house, of which God had told David and his son Solomon, "In this house and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen from all the tribes of Israel, I will set my name forever.
8 I will never again make Israel's feet wander from the land I assigned to your fathers, if only they take care to do everything I have commanded them, the whole law, the statutes, and the judgments given through Moses."
9 But Manasseh led Judah and the people of Jerusalem astray, so that they did worse evil than the nations the LORD had wiped out before the children of Israel.
10 The LORD spoke to Manasseh and his people, but they would not listen.
11 So the LORD brought against them the commanders of the king of Assyria's army. They took Manasseh with hooks, put him in bronze shackles, and led him away to Babylon.
12 In his distress he begged the LORD his God for mercy and humbled himself deeply before the God of his fathers.
13 He prayed to him, and God let himself be moved by him; he heard his plea and brought him back to Jerusalem and to his kingdom. Then Manasseh knew that the LORD is God.
14 After this he built an outer wall for the City of David west of Gihon in the valley, up to the entrance of the Fish Gate and around Ophel, and made it much higher. He also stationed army commanders in all the fortress cities of Judah.
15 He got rid of the foreign gods and the idol from the house of the LORD, as well as all the altars he had built on the temple mount and in Jerusalem, and threw them out of the city.
16 He rebuilt the LORD's altar and offered peace offerings and thank offerings on it, and he told Judah to serve the LORD God of Israel.
17 The people, however, kept sacrificing at the high places, though only to the LORD their God.
18 The rest of Manasseh's deeds, his prayer to his God, and the words of the seers who spoke to him in the name of the LORD God of Israel are recorded in the annals of the kings of Israel.
19 His prayer and how God was moved by him, and all his sin and unfaithfulness, and the sites where he built high places and set up the Asherim and the idols before he humbled himself, are written in the records of Hozai.
20 Manasseh lay down with his fathers and was buried at his palace, and his son Amon became king after him.
21 Amon was twenty-two when he became king, and he ruled two years in Jerusalem.
22 He did evil in the LORD's sight, as his father Manasseh had done. Amon sacrificed to all the idols his father Manasseh had made, and served them.
23 Unlike his father Manasseh, he did not humble himself before the LORD; instead Amon piled up more and more guilt.
24 His servants plotted against him and killed him in his palace.
25 But the people of the land killed all who had plotted against King Amon and made his son Josiah king after him.