2 Kings 21

⁴No longer will you be called Forsaken, nor your land named Desolate; but you will be called Hephzibah, and your land Beulah; for the Lord will take delight in you, and your land will be His bride.

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

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

²¹And Hezekiah rested with his fathers, and his son Manasseh reigned in his place.

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.

¹⁹A loving doe, a graceful fawn—may her breasts satisfy you always; may you be captivated by her love forever.

¹⁷because they have forsaken Me and burned incense to other gods, that they might provoke Me to anger with all the works of their hands. My wrath will be kindled against this place and will not be quenched.’

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.

²⁵Even the land has become defiled, so I am punishing it for its sin, and the land will vomit out its inhabitants.

²⁶But you are to keep My statutes and ordinances, and you must not commit any of these abominations—neither your native-born nor the foreigner who lives among you.

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.

⁵¹Furthermore, Samaria did not commit half the sins you did. You have multiplied your abominations beyond theirs, and all the abominations you have committed have made your sisters appear righteous.

¹⁶Moreover, Manasseh shed so much innocent blood that he filled Jerusalem from end to end, in addition to the sin that he had caused Judah to commit, doing evil in the sight of the Lord.

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.

¹⁶They abandoned all the commandments of the Lord their God and made for themselves two cast idols of calves and an Asherah pole. They bowed down to all the host of heaven and served Baal.

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—

³¹And as if it were not enough for him to walk in the sins of Jeroboam son of Nebat, he even married Jezebel the daughter of Ethbaal king of the Sidonians, and he then proceeded to serve and worship Baal.

³²First, Ahab set up an altar for Baal in the temple of Baal that he had built in Samaria.

¹⁹When you look to the heavens and see the sun and moon and stars—all the host of heaven—do not be enticed to bow down and worship what the Lord your God has apportioned to all the nations under heaven.

¹⁸Then Jehu brought all the people together and said, “Ahab served Baal a little, but Jehu will serve him a lot.

¹⁹Now, therefore, summon to me all the prophets of Baal, all his servants, and all his priests. See that no one is missing, for I have a great sacrifice for Baal. Whoever is missing will not live.” But Jehu was acting deceptively in order to destroy the servants of Baal.

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.

¹³He will build a house for My Name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.

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

⁵Instead, you must seek the place the Lord your God will choose from among all your tribes to establish as a dwelling for His Name, and there you must go.

³And the Lord said to him: “I have heard your prayer and petition before Me. I have consecrated this temple, which you have built, by putting My Name there forever; My eyes and My heart will be there for all time.

¹⁰Then King Ahaz went to Damascus to meet Tiglath-pileser king of Assyria. On seeing the altar in Damascus, King Ahaz sent Uriah the priest a model of the altar and complete plans for its construction.

¹¹And Uriah the priest built the altar according to all the instructions King Ahaz had sent from Damascus, and he completed it before King Ahaz returned.

¹²The great courtyard was surrounded by three rows of dressed stone and a row of trimmed cedar beams, as were the inner courtyard and portico of the house of the Lord.

⁴Then the king commanded Hilkiah the high priest, the priests second in rank, and the doorkeepers to remove from the temple of the Lord all the articles made for Baal, Asherah, and all the host of heaven. And he burned them outside Jerusalem in the fields of Kidron and carried their ashes to Bethel.

¹²He pulled down the altars that the kings of Judah had set up on the roof near the upper chamber of Ahaz, and the altars that Manasseh had set up in the two courtyards of the house of the Lord. The king pulverized them there and threw their dust into the Kidron Valley.

³⁶Solomon built the inner courtyard with three rows of dressed stone and one row of trimmed cedar beams.

⁶He brought the Asherah pole from the house of the Lord to the Kidron Valley outside Jerusalem, and there he burned it, ground it to powder, and threw its dust on the graves of the common people.

²⁸Next he brought me into the inner court through the south gate, and he measured the south gate; it had the same measurements as the others.

¹⁷They sacrificed their sons and daughters in the fire and practiced divination and soothsaying. They devoted themselves to doing 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.

³Instead, he walked in the ways of the kings of Israel and even sacrificed his son in the fire, according to the abominations of the nations that the Lord had driven out before the Israelites.

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

¹⁰Let no one be found among you who sacrifices his son or daughter in the fire, practices divination or conjury, interprets omens, practices sorcery,

¹¹casts spells, consults a medium or spiritist, or inquires of the dead.

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.

³And the Lord said to him: “I have heard your prayer and petition before Me. I have consecrated this temple, which you have built, by putting My Name there forever; My eyes and My heart will be there for all time.

¹³He will build a house for My Name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.

¹²the Lord appeared to him at night and said to him: “I have heard your prayer and have chosen this place for Myself as a house of sacrifice.

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.

⁶He brought the Asherah pole from the house of the Lord to the Kidron Valley outside Jerusalem, and there he burned it, ground it to powder, and threw its dust on the graves of the common people.

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

³Thus says the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel: Correct your ways and deeds, and I will let you live in this place.

⁴Do not trust in deceptive words, saying: ‘This is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord.’

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

²⁰Say to them, ‘Hear the word of the Lord, O kings of Judah, all people of Judah and Jerusalem who enter through these gates.

²¹This is what the Lord says: Take heed for yourselves; do not carry a load or bring it through the gates of Jerusalem on the Sabbath day.

¹“Now if you faithfully obey the voice of the Lord your God and are careful to follow all His commandments I am giving you today, the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations of the earth.

²And all these blessings will come upon you and overtake you, if you will obey the voice of the Lord your God:

²“As for you, son of man, will you judge her? Will you pass judgment on the city of bloodshed? Then confront her with all her abominations

³and tell her that this is what the Lord God says: ‘O city who brings her own doom by shedding blood within her walls and making idols to defile herself,

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

⁶We have not listened to Your servants the prophets, who spoke in Your name to our kings, leaders, fathers, and all the people of the land.

³⁴O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those sent to her, how often I have longed to gather your children together as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were unwilling!

¹¹Ephraim is oppressed, crushed in judgment, for he is determined to follow worthless idols.

²²If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not be guilty of sin. Now, however, they have no excuse for their sin.

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.

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.

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.

²⁶But they were disobedient and rebelled against You; they flung Your law behind their backs. They killed Your prophets, who had admonished them to return to You. They committed terrible blasphemies.

³⁴Because of this, I am sending you prophets and wise men and teachers. Some of them you will kill and crucify, and others you will flog in your synagogues and persecute from town to town.

³⁵And so upon you will come all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah son of Berechiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar.

¹⁰And the Lord spoke to Manasseh and his people, but they did not listen.

²⁶He committed the most detestable acts by going after idols, just like the Amorites whom 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.

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.

⁴I will make them a horror to all the kingdoms of the earth because of what Manasseh son of Hezekiah king of Judah did in Jerusalem.

³⁰because of the sins Jeroboam had committed and had caused Israel to commit, and because he had provoked the Lord, the God of Israel, to anger.

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.

³saying, ‘Hear the word of the Lord, O kings of Judah and residents of Jerusalem. This is what the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel, says: I am going to bring such disaster on this place that the ears of all who hear of it will ring,

¹¹Then the Lord said to Samuel, “I am about to do something in Israel at which the ears of all who hear it will tingle.

¹²You have carried out the words spoken against us and against our rulers by bringing upon us a great disaster. For under all of heaven, nothing has ever been done like what has been done to Jerusalem.

¹²Therefore, because of you, Zion will be plowed like a field, Jerusalem will become a heap of rubble, and the temple mount a wooded ridge.

²“Only you have I known from all the families of the earth; therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities.”

¹⁶that this is what the Lord says: I am about to bring calamity on this place and on its people, according to all the words of the book that the king of Judah has read,

⁷This is what He showed me: Behold, the Lord was standing by a wall true to plumb, with a plumb line in His hand.

⁸“Amos, what do you see?” asked the Lord. “A plumb line,” I replied. “Behold,” said the Lord, “I am setting a plumb line among My people Israel; I will no longer spare them:

⁸The Lord determined to destroy the wall of the Daughter of Zion. He stretched out a measuring line and did not withdraw His hand from destroying. He made the ramparts and walls lament; together they waste away.

¹¹The desert owl and screech owl will possess it, and the great owl and raven will dwell in it. The Lord will stretch out over Edom a measuring line of chaos and a plumb line of destruction.

²²Though your people, O Israel, be like the sand of the sea, only a remnant will return. Destruction has been decreed, overflowing with righteousness.

³¹Because you have followed the path of your sister, I will put her cup into your hand.’

³²This is what the Lord God says: ‘You will drink your sister’s cup, a cup deep and wide. It will bring scorn and derision, for it holds so much.

⁹behold, I will summon all the families of the north, declares the Lord, and I will send for My servant Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, whom I will bring against this land, against its residents, and against all the surrounding nations. So I will devote them to destruction and make them an object of horror and contempt, an everlasting desolation.

³³“Now when this people or a prophet or priest asks you, ‘What is the burden of the Lord?’ you are to say to them, ‘What burden? I will forsake you, declares the Lord.’

⁴Perhaps the Lord your God will hear all the words of the Rabshakeh, whom his master the king of Assyria has sent to defy the living God, and He will rebuke him for the words that the Lord your God has heard. Therefore lift up a prayer for the remnant that still survives.”

³⁸Now, however, You have spurned and rejected him; You are enraged by Your anointed one.

³⁹You have renounced the covenant with Your servant and sullied his crown in the dust.

¹⁴Then the anger of the Lord burned against Israel, and He delivered them into the hands of those who plundered them. He sold them into the hands of their enemies all around, whom they were no longer able to resist.

¹⁵Wherever Israel marched out, the hand of the Lord was against them to bring calamity, just as He had sworn to them. So they were greatly distressed.

¹⁷And I will set My face against you, so that you will be defeated by your enemies. Those who hate you will rule over you, and you will flee when no one pursues you.

²⁸For the Lord loves justice and will not forsake His saints. They are preserved forever, but the offspring of the wicked will be cut off.

²¹And I took that sinful thing, the calf you had made, and burned it in the fire. Then I crushed it and ground it to powder as fine as dust, and I cast it into the stream that came down from the mountain.

¹³Yet the house of Israel rebelled against Me in the wilderness. They did not follow My statutes and they rejected My ordinances—though the man who does these things will live by them—and they utterly profaned My Sabbaths. Then I resolved to pour out My wrath upon them and put an end to them in the wilderness.

⁵we have sinned and done wrong. We have acted wickedly and rebelled. We have turned away from Your commandments and ordinances.

⁶We have not listened to Your servants the prophets, who spoke in Your name to our kings, leaders, fathers, and all the people of the land.

²⁹For I know that after my death you will become utterly corrupt and turn from the path I have commanded you. And in the days to come, disaster will befall you because you will do evil in the sight of the Lord to provoke Him to anger by the work of your hands.”

²¹But the children rebelled against Me. They did not walk in My statutes or carefully observe My ordinances—though the man who does these things will live by them—and they profaned My Sabbaths. So I resolved to pour out My wrath upon them and vent My anger against them in the wilderness.

¹⁵But because of your fame, you trusted in your beauty and played the harlot. You lavished your favors on everyone who passed by, and your beauty was theirs for the asking.

¹⁶You took some of your garments and made colorful high places for yourself, and on them you prostituted yourself. Such things should not have happened; never should they have occurred!

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.

¹¹“Since Manasseh king of Judah has committed all these abominations, acting more wickedly than the Amorites who preceded him, and with his idols has caused Judah to sin,

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.

²¹“What did this people do to you,” Moses asked Aaron, “that you have led them into so great a sin?”

³⁷They were stoned, they were sawed in two, they were put to death by the sword. They went around in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, oppressed, and mistreated.

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.

²⁰As for the rest of the acts of Hezekiah, along with all his might and how he constructed the pool and the tunnel to bring water into the city, are they not written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah?

²¹And Hezekiah rested with his fathers, and his son Manasseh reigned in his place.

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.

²⁰And Manasseh rested with his fathers and was buried at his palace. And his son Amon reigned in his place.

²⁶And he was buried in his tomb in the garden of Uzza, and his son Josiah reigned in his place.

¹⁶And Jehoiada was buried with the kings in the City of David, because he had done what was good in Israel for God and His temple.

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.

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.

¹⁹He will be buried like a donkey, dragged away and thrown outside the gates of Jerusalem.

²¹Amon was twenty-two years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem two years.

²²And he did evil in the sight of the Lord, as his father Manasseh had done. Amon served and sacrificed to all the idols that his father Manasseh had made,

²³In the fiftieth year of Azariah’s reign over Judah, Pekahiah son of Menahem became king of Israel and reigned in Samaria two years.

⁵¹In the seventeenth year of Jehoshaphat’s reign over Judah, Ahaziah son of Ahab became king of Israel, and he reigned in Samaria two years.

⁸In the twenty-sixth year of Asa’s reign over Judah, Elah son of Baasha became king of Israel, and he reigned in Tirzah two years.

¹⁴Amon his son, and Josiah his son.

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

³²Fill up, then, the measure of the sin of your fathers.

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.

³For he rebuilt the high places that his father Hezekiah had destroyed, and he raised up altars for Baal. He made an Asherah pole, as King Ahab of Israel had done, and he worshiped and served all the host of heaven.

²²And he did evil in the sight of the Lord, as his father Manasseh had done. Amon served and sacrificed to all the idols that his father Manasseh had made,

²³but he did not humble himself before the Lord as his father Manasseh had done; instead, Amon increased his guilt.

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

¹¹“Since Manasseh king of Judah has committed all these abominations, acting more wickedly than the Amorites who preceded him, and with his idols has caused Judah to sin,

¹⁴Now behold, you, a brood of sinners, have risen up in place of your fathers to further stoke the burning anger of the Lord against Israel.

³³For they have forsaken Me to worship Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians, Chemosh the god of the Moabites, and Milcom the god of the Ammonites. They have not walked in My ways, nor done what is right in My eyes, nor kept My statutes and judgments, as Solomon’s father David did.

¹⁷because they have forsaken Me and burned incense to other gods, that they might provoke Me to anger with all the works of their hands. My wrath will be kindled against this place and will not be quenched.’

⁹As for you, Solomon my son, know the God of your father and serve Him wholeheartedly and with a willing mind, for the Lord searches every heart and understands the intent of every thought. If you seek Him, He will be found by you; but if you forsake Him, He will reject you forever.

¹⁵But Jeshurun grew fat and kicked—becoming fat, bloated, and gorged. He abandoned the God who made him and scorned the Rock of his salvation.

¹³“For My people have committed two evils: They have forsaken Me, the fountain of living water, and they have dug their own cisterns—broken cisterns that cannot hold water.

⁸Those who cling to worthless idols forsake His loving devotion.

²⁰And the servants of Joash rose up and formed a conspiracy and killed him at Beth-millo, on the road down to Silla.

²⁴Then the servants of Amon conspired against him and killed him in his palace.

²⁵But the people of the land killed all those who had conspired against King Amon, and they made his son Josiah king in his place.

¹⁹And conspirators plotted against Amaziah in Jerusalem, and he fled to Lachish. But men were sent after him to Lachish, and they killed him there.

⁹However, while Elah was in Tirzah getting drunk in the house of Arza the steward of his household there, Elah’s servant Zimri, the commander of half his chariots, conspired against him.

³⁰Then Hoshea son of Elah led a conspiracy against Pekah son of Remaliah. In the twentieth year of Jotham son of Uzziah, Hoshea attacked Pekah, killed him, and reigned in his place.

²⁵Then his officer, Pekah son of Remaliah, conspired against him along with Argob, Arieh, and fifty men of Gilead. And at the citadel of the king’s palace in Samaria, Pekah struck down and killed Pekahiah and reigned in his place.

⁵As soon as the kingdom was firmly in his grasp, Amaziah executed the servants who had murdered his father the king.

¹Then Rehoboam went to Shechem, for all Israel had gone there to make him king.

¹⁷Then Jehoiada made a covenant between the Lord and the king and the people that they would be the Lord’s people. He also made a covenant between the king and the people.

²⁵But the people of the land killed all those who had conspired against King Amon, and they made his son Josiah king in his place.

²⁰When all Israel heard that Jeroboam had returned, they summoned him to the assembly and made him king over all Israel. Only the tribe of Judah followed the house of David.

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

¹⁷As for the rest of the acts of Manasseh, along with all his accomplishments and the sin that he committed, are they not written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah?

²⁰As for the rest of the acts of Hezekiah, along with all his might and how he constructed the pool and the tunnel to bring water into the city, are they not written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah?

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.

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

⁵And the altar was split apart, and the ashes poured out, according to the sign that the man of God had given by the word of the Lord.