2 Chronicles 33

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

²And he did evil in the sight of the Lord by following the abominations of the nations that the Lord had driven out before the Israelites.

¹³Ahaz his son, Hezekiah his son, Manasseh his son,

⁴“I will make mere lads their leaders, and children will rule over them.”

³³And Hezekiah rested with his fathers and was buried in the upper tombs of David’s descendants. All Judah and the people of Jerusalem paid him honor at his death. And his son Manasseh reigned in his place.

¹⁰Hezekiah was the father of Manasseh, Manasseh the father of Amon, Amon the father of Josiah,

¹²Youths oppress My people, and women rule over them. O My people, your guides mislead you; they turn you from your paths.

³Moreover, Ahaz burned incense in the Valley of Ben-hinnom and sacrificed his sons in the fire, according to the abominations of the nations that the Lord had driven out before the Israelites.

⁹When you enter the land that the Lord your God is giving you, do not imitate the detestable ways of the nations there.

²And he did evil in the sight of the Lord by following the abominations of the nations that the Lord had driven out before the Israelites.

³¹You must not worship the Lord your God in this way, because they practice for their gods every abomination which the Lord hates. They even burn their sons and daughters in the fire as sacrifices to their gods.

¹²Then you will know that I am the Lord. For you have neither followed My statutes nor practiced My ordinances, but you have conformed to the ordinances of the nations around you.”

¹⁵They rejected His statutes and the covenant He had made with their fathers, as well as the decrees He had given them. They pursued worthless idols and became worthless themselves, going after the surrounding nations that the Lord had commanded them not to imitate.

²¹Do not set up any wooden Asherah pole next to the altar you will build for the Lord your God,

³and going to worship other gods, bowing down to them or to the sun or moon or any of the host of heaven—which I have forbidden—

¹When all this had ended, the Israelites in attendance went out to the cities of Judah and broke up the sacred pillars, chopped down the Asherah poles, and tore down the high places and altars throughout Judah and Benjamin, as well as in Ephraim and Manasseh, until they had utterly destroyed them all. Then all the Israelites returned to their cities, each to his own property.

¹⁴They proceeded to remove the altars in Jerusalem and to take away the incense altars and throw them into the Kidron Valley.

⁴He removed the high places, shattered the sacred pillars, and cut down the Asherah poles. He also demolished the bronze snake called Nehushtan that Moses had made, for up to that time the Israelites had burned incense to it.

¹⁸Wisdom is better than weapons of war, but one sinner destroys much good.

¹⁶For I have now chosen and consecrated this temple so that My Name may be there forever. My eyes and My heart will be there for all time.

⁶But now I have chosen Jerusalem for My Name to be there, and I have chosen David to be over My people Israel.’

²⁹May Your eyes be open toward this temple night and day, toward the place of which You said, ‘My Name shall be there,’ so that You may hear the prayer that Your servant prays toward this place.

¹¹then the Lord your God will choose a dwelling for His Name. And there you are to bring everything I command you: your burnt offerings and sacrifices, your tithes and special gifts, and all the choice offerings you vow to the Lord.

³⁰For the people of Judah have done evil in My sight, declares the Lord. They have set up their abominations in the house that bears My Name, and so have defiled it.

³In the eighth year of his reign, while he was still young, Josiah began to seek the God of his father David, and in the twelfth year he began to cleanse Judah and Jerusalem of the high places, the Asherah poles, the carved idols, and the cast images.

⁴Then in his presence the altars of the Baals were torn down, and he cut to pieces the incense altars that were above them. He shattered the Asherah poles, the carved idols, and the cast images, crushed them to dust, and scattered them over the graves of those who had sacrificed to them.

⁹He made the courtyard of the priests and the large court with its doors, and he overlaid the doors with bronze.

³⁴They have placed their abominations in the house that bears My Name, and so have defiled it.

³⁵They have built the high places of Baal in the Valley of Ben-hinnom to make their sons and daughters pass through the fire to Molech—something I never commanded them, nor had it ever entered My mind, that they should commit such an abomination and cause Judah to sin.

⁷Then He brought me to the entrance to the court, and I looked and saw a hole in the wall.

⁸“Son of man,” He told me, “dig through the wall.” So I dug through the wall and discovered a doorway.

⁶Whoever turns to mediums or spiritists to prostitute himself with them, I will also set My face against that person and cut him off from his people.

²⁶You must not eat anything with blood still in it. You must not practice divination or sorcery.

⁶He sacrificed his own son in the fire, practiced sorcery and divination, and consulted mediums and spiritists. He did great evil in the sight of the Lord, provoking Him to anger.

³¹You must not turn to mediums or spiritists; do not seek them out, or you will be defiled by them. I am the Lord your God.

²¹You must not give any of your children to be sacrificed to Molech, for you must not profane the name of your God. I am the Lord.

³Moreover, Ahaz burned incense in the Valley of Ben-hinnom and sacrificed his sons in the fire, according to the abominations of the nations that the Lord had driven out before the Israelites.

⁴Manasseh also built altars in the house of the Lord, of which the Lord had said, “My Name will remain in Jerusalem forever.”

¹⁶For I have now chosen and consecrated this temple so that My Name may be there forever. My eyes and My heart will be there for all time.

¹⁵He removed the foreign gods and the idol from the house of the Lord, along with all the altars he had built on the temple mount and in Jerusalem, and he dumped them outside the city.

¹³Yet I will not tear the whole kingdom away from him. I will give one tribe to your son for the sake of My servant David and for the sake of Jerusalem, which I have chosen.”

⁴⁸and when they return to You with all their heart and soul in the land of the enemies who took them captive, and when they pray to You in the direction of the land that You gave to their fathers, the city You have chosen, and the house I have built for Your Name,

¹³For the Lord has chosen Zion; He has desired it for His home:

¹⁴“This is My resting place forever and ever; here I will dwell, for I have desired this home.

¹⁰And I will provide a place for My people Israel and will plant them so that they may dwell in a place of their own and be disturbed no more. No longer will the sons of wickedness oppress them as they did at the beginning

¹You must carefully follow every commandment I am giving you today, so that you may live and multiply, and enter and possess the land that the Lord swore to give your fathers.

⁴⁰Keep His statutes and commandments, which I am giving you today, so that you and your children after you may prosper, and that you may live long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you for all time.

⁹And I will provide a place for My people Israel and will plant them so that they may dwell in a place of their own and be disturbed no more. No longer will the sons of wickedness oppress them as they did at the beginning

²⁵Therefore tell them that this is what the Lord God says: ‘You eat meat with the blood in it, lift up your eyes to your idols, and shed blood. Should you then possess the land?

²⁶You have relied on your swords, you have committed detestable acts, and each of you has defiled his neighbor’s wife. Should you then possess the land?’

³¹But you stand here with Me, that I may speak to you all the commandments and statutes and ordinances you are to teach them to follow in the land that I am giving them to possess.”

²And he did evil in the sight of the Lord by following the abominations of the nations that the Lord had driven out before the Israelites.

³Surely this happened to Judah at the Lord’s command, to remove them from His presence because of the sins of Manasseh and all that he had done,

⁴and also for the innocent blood he had shed. For he had filled Jerusalem with innocent blood, and the Lord was unwilling to forgive.

¹²If a ruler listens to lies, all his officials will be wicked.

⁹But the people did not listen and Manasseh led them astray, so that they did greater evil than the nations that the Lord had destroyed before the Israelites.

¹⁰And the Lord spoke through His servants the prophets, saying,

²¹They were a people great and many, as tall as the Anakites. But the Lord destroyed them from before the Ammonites, who drove them out and settled in their place,

⁴⁵You are the daughter of your mother, who despised her husband and children. You are the sister of your sisters, who despised their husbands and children. Your mother was a Hittite and your father an Amorite.

⁴⁶Your older sister was Samaria, who lived with her daughters to your north; and your younger sister was Sodom, who lived with her daughters to your south.

¹⁵Again and again the Lord, the God of their fathers, sent word to His people through His messengers because He had compassion on them and on His dwelling place.

¹⁶But they mocked the messengers of God, despising His words and scoffing at His prophets, until the wrath of the Lord against His people was stirred up beyond remedy.

⁴Yet I sent you all My servants the prophets again and again, saying: ‘Do not do this detestable thing that I hate.’

⁵But they did not listen or incline their ears; they did not turn from their wickedness or stop burning incense to other gods.

⁴Do not be like your fathers, to whom the former prophets proclaimed that this is what the Lord of Hosts says: ‘Turn now from your evil ways and deeds.’ But they did not listen or pay attention to Me, declares the Lord.

²⁹You admonished them to turn back to Your law, but they were arrogant and disobeyed Your commandments. They sinned against Your ordinances, by which a man will live if he practices them. They turned a stubborn shoulder; they stiffened their necks and would not obey.

³⁰You were patient with them for many years, and Your Spirit admonished them through Your prophets. Yet they would not listen, so You gave them into the hands of the neighboring peoples.

⁵¹You stiff-necked people with uncircumcised hearts and ears! You always resist the Holy Spirit, just as your fathers did.

⁵²Which of the prophets did your fathers fail to persecute? They even killed those who foretold the coming of the Righteous One. And now you are His betrayers and murderers—

⁴And the Lord has sent all His servants the prophets to you again and again, but you have not listened or inclined your ear to hear.

⁵The prophets told you, ‘Turn now, each of you, from your evil ways and deeds, and you can dwell in the land that the Lord has given to you and your fathers forever and ever.

³⁶The Lord will bring you and the king you appoint to a nation neither you nor your fathers have known, and there you will worship other gods—gods of wood and stone.

⁶Then Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came up against Jehoiakim and bound him with bronze shackles to take him to Babylon.

⁹For how can you repel a single officer among the least of my master’s servants when you depend on Egypt for chariots and horsemen?

⁶Seeing that they were in danger because their troops were hard-pressed, the men of Israel hid in caves and thickets, among the rocks, and in cellars and cisterns.

³²So now, our God, the great and mighty and awesome God who keeps His gracious covenant, do not view lightly all the hardship that has come upon us, and upon our kings and leaders, our priests and prophets, our ancestors and all Your people, from the days of the kings of Assyria until today.

³⁷Its abundant harvest goes to the kings You have set over us because of our sins. And they rule over our bodies and our livestock as they please. We are in great distress.

³So Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and told him, “This is what the Lord, the God of the Hebrews, says: ‘How long will you refuse to humble yourself before Me? Let My people go, so that they may worship Me.

¹⁵Call upon Me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you will honor Me.”

²⁶Then Hezekiah humbled the pride of his heart—he and the people of Jerusalem—so that the wrath of the Lord did not come upon them during the days of Hezekiah.

¹⁴I tell you, this man, rather than the Pharisee, went home justified. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”

¹⁵Now people were even bringing their babies to Jesus for Him to place His hands on them. And when the disciples saw this, they rebuked those who brought them.

¹¹“Get up!” the Lord told him. “Go to the house of Judas on Straight Street and ask for a man from Tarsus named Saul, for he is praying.

¹⁵Then I will return to My place until they admit their guilt and seek My face; in their affliction they will earnestly seek Me.”

²⁰And because they cried out to God in battle, they were helped against their enemies, and the Hagrites and all their allies were delivered into their hands. Because they put their trust in God, He answered their prayers.

⁷Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened to you.

⁸For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.

³³But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you.

²⁵You will be driven away from mankind, and your dwelling will be with the beasts of the field. You will feed on grass like an ox and be drenched with the dew of heaven, and seven times shall pass you by, until you acknowledge that the Most High rules over the kingdom of mankind and gives it to whom He wishes.

¹²Then you will call upon Me and come and pray to Me, and I will listen to you.

¹³You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart.

²³So we fasted and petitioned our God about this, and He granted our request.

³³“Take my servants with you,” said the king. “Set my son Solomon on my own mule and take him down to Gihon.

³Jotham rebuilt the Upper Gate of the house of the Lord, and he worked extensively on the wall at the hill of Ophel.

³The Fish Gate was rebuilt by the sons of Hassenaah. They laid its beams and installed its doors, bolts, and bars.

³⁹over the Gate of Ephraim, the Jeshanah Gate, the Fish Gate, the Tower of Hananel, and the Tower of the Hundred, as far as the Sheep Gate. And they stopped at the Gate of the Guard.

¹⁰On that day,” declares the Lord, “a cry will go up from the Fish Gate, a wail from the Second District, and a loud crashing from the hills.

⁴⁵Zadok the priest and Nathan the prophet have anointed him king at Gihon, and they have gone up from there with rejoicing that rings out in the city. That is the noise you hear.

³For he rebuilt the high places that his father Hezekiah had torn down, and he raised up altars for the Baals and made Asherah poles. And he worshiped and served all the host of heaven.

⁴Manasseh also built altars in the house of the Lord, of which the Lord had said, “My Name will remain in Jerusalem forever.”

⁸Produce fruit, then, in keeping with repentance.

¹Return, O Israel, to the Lord your God, for you have stumbled by your iniquity.

²Bring your confessions and return to the Lord. Say to Him: “Take away all our iniquity and receive us graciously, that we may present the fruit of our lips.

⁷Manasseh even took the carved Asherah pole he had made and set it up in the temple, of which the Lord had said to David and his son Solomon, “In this temple and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, I will establish My Name forever.

¹⁷So the pride of man will be brought low, and the loftiness of men will be humbled; the Lord alone will be exalted in that day,

¹⁸and the idols will vanish completely.

²⁰The soul who sins is the one who will die. A son will not bear the iniquity of his father, and a father will not bear the iniquity of his son. The righteousness of the righteous man will fall upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked man will fall upon him.

²¹But if the wicked man turns from all the sins he has committed, keeps all My statutes, and does what is just and right, he will surely live; he will not die.

⁹So Manasseh led the people of Judah and Jerusalem astray, so that they did greater evil than the nations that the Lord had destroyed before the Israelites.

¹²Moreover, the power of God was on the people in Judah to give them one heart to obey the command of the king and his officials according to the word of the Lord.

¹“If one’s offering is a peace offering and he offers an animal from the herd, whether male or female, he must present it without blemish before the Lord.

²He is to lay his hand on the head of the offering and slaughter it at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting. Then Aaron’s sons the priests shall splatter the blood on all sides of the altar.

¹⁸Then they went in to King Hezekiah and reported, “We have cleansed the entire house of the Lord, the altar of burnt offering with all its utensils, and the table of the showbread with all its utensils.

⁴He commanded the people of Judah to seek the Lord, the God of their fathers, and to observe the law and the commandments.

¹¹Now this is the law of the peace offering that one may present to the Lord:

¹²If he offers it in thanksgiving, then along with the sacrifice of thanksgiving he shall offer unleavened cakes mixed with olive oil, unleavened wafers coated with oil, and well-kneaded cakes of fine flour mixed with oil.

¹²Did not Hezekiah himself remove His high places and His altars and say to Judah and Jerusalem, ‘You must worship before one altar, and on it you shall burn sacrifices’?

¹⁷The high places were not removed from Israel, but Asa’s heart was fully devoted all his days.

⁴³And Jehoshaphat walked in all the ways of his father Asa; he did not turn away from them, but did what was right in the eyes of the Lord. The high places, however, were not removed; the people still sacrificed and burned incense on the high places.

⁴Nevertheless, the high places were not taken away; the people continued sacrificing and burning incense there.

¹⁹His prayer and how God received his plea, as well as all his sin and unfaithfulness, and the sites where he built high places and set up Asherah poles and idols before he humbled himself, they are indeed written in the Records of the Seers.

¹²And in his distress, Manasseh sought the favor of the Lord his God and earnestly humbled himself before the God of his fathers.

¹³And when he prayed to Him, the Lord received his plea and heard his petition. So He brought him back to Jerusalem and to his kingdom. Then Manasseh knew that the Lord is God.

³⁴As for the rest of the acts of Jehoshaphat, from beginning to end, they are indeed written in the Chronicles of Jehu son of Hanani, which are recorded in the Book of the Kings of Israel.

¹²And Amaziah said to Amos, “Go away, you seer! Flee to the land of Judah; earn your bread there and do your prophesying there.

¹⁰They say to the seers, “Stop seeing visions!” and to the prophets, “Do not prophesy to us the truth! Speak to us pleasant words; prophesy illusions.

³²As for the rest of the acts of Hezekiah and his deeds of loving devotion, they are indeed written in the vision of the prophet Isaiah son of Amoz in the Book of the Kings of Judah and Israel.

⁹If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

¹¹“Get up!” the Lord told him. “Go to the house of Judas on Straight Street and ask for a man from Tarsus named Saul, for he is praying.

²²But you his son, O Belshazzar, have not humbled your heart, even though you knew all this.

¹⁶Again, the gift is not like the result of the one man’s sin: The judgment that followed one sin brought condemnation, but the gift that followed many trespasses brought justification.

¹⁰To this day they have not humbled themselves or shown reverence, nor have they followed My instruction or the statutes that I set before you and your fathers.

⁶⁷Before I was afflicted, I went astray; but now I keep Your word.

¹⁰Hezekiah was the father of Manasseh, Manasseh the father of Amon, Amon the father of Josiah,

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

¹⁹Amon was twenty-two years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem two years. His mother’s name was Meshullemeth daughter of Haruz; she was from Jotbah.

¹⁴Amon his son, and Josiah his son.

³³And Hezekiah rested with his fathers and was buried in the upper tombs of David’s descendants. All Judah and the people of Jerusalem paid him honor at his death. And his son Manasseh reigned in his place.

¹³Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business, and make a profit.”

¹⁴You do not even know what will happen tomorrow! What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.

¹⁹Then I will say to myself, “You have plenty of good things laid up for many years. Take it easy. Eat, drink, and be merry!”’

²⁰But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life will be required of you. Then who will own what you have accumulated?’

¹⁹Amon was twenty-two years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem two years. His mother’s name was Meshullemeth daughter of Haruz; she was from Jotbah.

²⁰And he did evil in the sight of the Lord, as his father Manasseh had done.

¹Manasseh was twelve years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem fifty-five years.

³In the eighth year of his reign, while he was still young, Josiah began to seek the God of his father David, and in the twelfth year he began to cleanse Judah and Jerusalem of the high places, the Asherah poles, the carved idols, and the cast images.

⁴Then in his presence the altars of the Baals were torn down, and he cut to pieces the incense altars that were above them. He shattered the Asherah poles, the carved idols, and the cast images, crushed them to dust, and scattered them over the graves of those who had sacrificed to them.

¹Manasseh was twelve years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem fifty-five years.

²And he did evil in the sight of the Lord by following the abominations of the nations that the Lord had driven out before the Israelites.

¹⁸In the wilderness I said to their children: ‘Do not walk in the statutes of your fathers or keep their ordinances or defile yourselves with their idols.

¹³The woodworker extends a measuring line; he marks it out with a stylus; he shapes it with chisels and outlines it with a compass. He fashions it in the likeness of man, like man in all his glory, that it may dwell in a shrine.

¹⁴He cuts down cedars or retrieves a cypress or oak. He lets it grow strong among the trees of the forest. He plants a laurel, and the rain makes it grow.

²⁰And he did evil in the sight of the Lord, as his father Manasseh had done.

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

²And he did evil in the sight of the Lord by following the abominations of the nations that the Lord had driven out before the Israelites.

¹²And in his distress, Manasseh sought the favor of the Lord his God and earnestly humbled himself before the God of his fathers.

¹⁹His prayer and how God received his plea, as well as all his sin and unfaithfulness, and the sites where he built high places and set up Asherah poles and idols before he humbled himself, they are indeed written in the Records of the Seers.

¹³while evil men and imposters go from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived.

²⁶Yet they would not listen to Me or incline their ear, but they stiffened their necks and did more evil than their fathers.

¹Manasseh was twelve years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem fifty-five years.

²²In the time of his distress, King Ahaz became even more unfaithful to the Lord.

²²Take notice, therefore, of the kindness and severity of God: severity to those who fell, but kindness to you, if you continue in His kindness. Otherwise you also will be cut off.

⁵Now Rechab and Baanah, the sons of Rimmon the Beerothite, set out and arrived at the house of Ish-bosheth in the heat of the day, while the king was taking his midday nap.

⁶They entered the interior of the house as if to get some wheat, and they stabbed him in the stomach. Then Rechab and his brother Baanah slipped away.

²⁵And when the Arameans had withdrawn, they left Joash severely wounded. His own servants conspired against him for shedding the blood of the son of Jehoiada the priest, and they killed him on his bed. So he died and was buried in the City of David, but not in the tombs of the kings.

²⁶Those who conspired against Joash were Zabad son of Shimeath the Ammonitess and Jehozabad son of Shimrith the Moabitess.

²³Then the servants of Amon conspired against him and killed the king in his palace.

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

²⁷From the time that Amaziah turned from following the Lord, a conspiracy was formed against him in Jerusalem, and he fled to Lachish. But men were sent after him to Lachish, and they killed him there.

²⁸They carried him back on horses and buried him with his fathers in the City of Judah.

²³But You, O God, will bring them down to the Pit of destruction; men of bloodshed and deceit will not live out half their days. But I will trust in You.

¹Then the people of the land took Jehoahaz son of Josiah and made him king in Jerusalem in place of his father.

³¹You are not to accept a ransom for the life of a murderer who deserves to die; he must surely be put to death.

¹Josiah was eight years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem thirty-one years.

¹All the people of Judah took Uzziah, who was sixteen years old, and made him king in place of his father Amaziah.

⁵And surely I will require the life of any man or beast by whose hand your lifeblood is shed. I will demand an accounting from anyone who takes the life of his fellow man:

⁶Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man his blood will be shed; for in His own image God has made mankind.

³³Do not pollute the land where you live, for bloodshed pollutes the land, and no atonement can be made for the land on which the blood is shed, except by the blood of the one who shed it.