2 Kings 21

Revised Geneva Translation

21 Manasseh was twelve years old when he began to reign and reigned for fifty-five years in Jerusalem. Also, his mother’s name was Hephzibah.

² And he did evil in the sight of the LORD, after the abominations of the heathen whom the LORD had cast out before the children of Israel.

³ For he went back and built the high places which Hezekiah, his father, had destroyed. And he erected altars for Baal and made a grove (as did Ahab, king of Israel) and worshipped all the host of heaven and served them.

⁴ Also, he built altars in the House of the LORD, of the which the LORD said, “In Jerusalem will I put My Name.”

⁵ And he built altars for all the host of the heaven in the two courts of the House of the LORD.

⁶ And he made his sons pass through the fire and gave himself to witchcraft and sorcery. And he used mediums and those who were soothsayers and did much evil in the sight of the LORD, to anger Him.

⁷ And he set the image of the grove that he had made in the House (of which the LORD had said to David and to Solomon, his son, “In this House and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, will I put My Name forever.

⁸ “And I will never again make the feet of Israel move out of the land which I gave their fathers, so that they will observe and do all that I have Commanded them, according to all the Law that My servant Moses commanded them.”).

⁹ Yet they did not obey. But Manasseh led them out of the way, to do more wickedly than the heathen did (whom the LORD destroyed before the children of Israel).

¹⁰ Therefore, the LORD spoke by His servants, the Prophets, saying,

¹¹ “Because Manasseh, king of Judah, has done such abominations, and has worked more wickedly than all that the Amorites who were before him did, and has also made Judah sin with his idols,

¹² “therefore thus says the LORD God of Israel: ‘Behold, I will bring a misery upon Jerusalem and Judah, so that whoever hears of it, both his ears shall tingle.

¹³ ‘And I will stretch the line of Samaria and the plummet of the House of Ahab over Jerusalem. And I will wipe Jerusalem as a man wipes a dish, which he wipes and turns upside down.

¹⁴ ‘And I will forsake the remnant of My inheritance and deliver them into the hand of their enemies. And they shall be robbed and plundered by all their adversaries,

¹⁵ ‘because they have done evil in My sight and have provoked Me to anger since the time their fathers came out of Egypt until this day.’”

¹⁶ Moreover, Manasseh shed exceedingly much innocent blood, until he filled Jerusalem from end to end (besides his sin with which he had made Judah sin and do evil in the sight of the LORD).

¹⁷ Concerning the rest of the acts of Manasseh, and all that he did, and his sin that he sinned, are they not written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah?

¹⁸ And Manasseh slept with his fathers and was buried in the garden of his own house, in the garden of Uzza. And Amon, his son, reigned in his place.

¹⁹ Amon was twenty-two years old when he began to reign. And he reigned for two years in Jerusalem. Also, his mother’s name was Meshullemeth, the daughter of Haruz of Jotbah.

²⁰ And he did evil in the sight of the LORD, as his father Manasseh did.

²¹ For he walked in all the ways that his father walked in, and served the idols that his father served, and worshipped them.

²² And he forsook the LORD God of his fathers, and did not walk in the way of the LORD.

²³ And the servants of Amon conspired against him and killed the king in his own house.

²⁴ And the people of the land killed all those who had conspired against King Amon, and the people made Josiah, his son, king in his place.

²⁵ Concerning the rest of the acts of Amon, which he did, are they not written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah?

²⁶ And they buried him in his sepulcher, in the garden of Uzza. And Josiah, his son, reigned in his place.