Manasseh's Idolatry, Captivity, Repentance, and Restoration
2 Chronicles 33:1-20
1Manasseh was twelve years old when he began to reign, and he reigned fifty-five years in Jerusalem.2He did what was bad in the sight of the LORD, like the abominations of the nations that the LORD had driven out before the sons of Israel.3He turned back and rebuilt the high places that Hezekiah his father had torn down; he erected altars to Baal, made Asherahs, bowed down to all the host of heaven, and served them.4He built altars in the house of the LORD, concerning which the LORD had said, 'In Jerusalem my name shall be forever.'5He built altars to all the host of heaven in the two courts of the house of the LORD.6He caused his sons to pass through the fire in the Valley of the son of Hinnom; he practiced divination, practiced sorcery, and appointed a medium and a spiritist. He increased the doing of what was bad in the sight of the LORD so as to provoke him.7He placed the idol—the idol that he had made—in the house of God, of which God had spoken to David and to Solomon his son: 'In this house and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen from all the tribes of Israel, I will set my name forever.'8I will not again remove the foot of Israel from the land that I established for your fathers, provided they carefully do everything I commanded them—all the law, the statutes, and the judgments given through Moses.9Manasseh led Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem astray, doing more evil than the nations that the LORD had destroyed before the sons of Israel.10The LORD spoke to Manasseh and to his people, but they did not listen.11So the LORD brought against them the commanders of the army of the king of Assyria; they captured Manasseh with hooks, bound him with bronze fetters, and took him to Babylon.12In his distress he sought the favor of the LORD his God and humbled himself deeply before the God of his fathers.13He prayed to him, and the LORD was moved by his entreaty, heard his supplication, and restored him to Jerusalem and to his kingdom. Then Manasseh knew that the LORD is God.14Afterward he built an outer wall for the city of David west of Gihon in the valley; he extended it to the Fish Gate, went around Ophel, and made it very high. He also appointed military officers over all the fortified cities in Judah.15He removed the foreign gods and the idol from the house of the LORD, together with all the altars he had built on the temple mount and in Jerusalem, and threw them outside the city.16He restored the altar of the LORD, offered on it sacrifices of well-being and thanksgiving, and commanded Judah to serve the LORD, the God of Israel.17Nevertheless the people continued to sacrifice at the high places, though only to the LORD their God.18The rest of the acts of Manasseh, his prayer to his God, and the words of the seers who spoke to him in the name of the LORD, the God of Israel—behold, they are recorded in the annals of the kings of Israel.19His prayer, the LORD's response, all his sin and unfaithfulness, the sites where he built high places and set up Asherahs and idols before he humbled himself—behold, these are written in the records of Hozai.20Manasseh lay down with his fathers and was buried in his palace; his son Amon succeeded him.