Open English Translation 2 CHR Chapter 33

33 Menashsheh (Manasseh) was twelve when he became king, and he reigned from Yerushalem for fifty-five years. 2 He did was what Yahweh had said was evil, like the disgusting things of the people groups that Yahweh had driven out ahead of the Israelis.[ref] 3 The hilltop shrines that his father Hizkiyah had torn down, he turned around and rebuilt them and erected altars to the Baals, and he made Asherot poles, and he bowed down to all the stars in the sky and served them. 4 He built altars in Yahweh’s temple in Yerushalem that Yahweh had previously said that his name would always be associated with.[ref] 5 He built altars for all the stars in the sky in both of the temple courtyards, 6 and he made his sons pass through the fire in the Ben-Hinnom valley, and he practiced fortune-telling and sorcery and magic, and connected with mediums and spirits. He did so much evil in Yahweh’s eyes that it provoked him into getting angry.

7 He made an idolatrous image and put it in the temple, yes, where God had told David and his son Shelomoh, “My name will be associated with that building forever, there in Yerushalem which was chosen from all the tribes of Yisrael.[ref] 8 If Yisrael will be careful to do everything that I’ve instructed them and follow all the regulations and statutes that were given to them through Mosheh, then I won’t force them to leave the land again that I gave to their ancestors.” 9 So Menashsheh led Yehudah’s inhabitants astray, and all Yehudah—doing more evil than the nations that Yahweh had destroyed ahead of the Israelis.

10 Then Yahweh spoke to King Menashsheh and his people, but they paid no attention, 11 so Yahweh brought in the army leaders from the Assyrian king and they captured Menashsheh. They put a hook in his nose and put bronze chains around his feet, and took him away to Babylon. 12 When he was there suffering, he humbled himself in the presence of his ancestors’ god Yahweh, and pleaded with him for help. 13 When he prayed, Yahweh listened to him and answered his request and brought him back to Yerushalem to his kingdom, then Menashsheh realised that Yahweh is really God.

14 After that, he rebuilt the outer wall for ‘The City of David’ on the west of Gihon to the Fish Gate and around the hill—also making it higher. Then he stationed army commanders in all of Yehudah’s fortified cities. 15 He removed the foreign gods and idols from the temple, as well as all the altars that he’d built on the temple mount and throughout Yerushalem, and he dumped them all outside the city. 16 Then he rebuilt Yahweh’s altar and sacrificed peace offering and thank offerings on it, and he told Yehudah to serve Yisrael’s god Yahweh. 17 However, the people continued to offer sacrifices at the hilltop shrines, but now only to their god Yahweh.

18 The record of all the other things done by Menashsheh while he was king, including his prayer to his god and the messages spoken to him by the prophets, was written on the scroll ‘The kings of Yisrael’. 19 It’s written in ‘The Words of Hozay’ about his disobedience and unfaithful activities, and how he’d built the hilltop shrines and Asherah poles and idols before he’d humbled himself, as well as the response to his pleading in his prayer. 20 Then Menashsheh died and was buried at his palace, and his son Amon replaced him as king.

21 Amon was twenty-two when he became king, and he ruled from Yerushalem for two years. 22 He did what Yahweh had said was evil, just like his father Menashsheh had done, and he sacrificed to all the idols that his father had made, and served them. 23 He didn’t humble himself and turn to Yahweh like his father had, so Amon’s guilt was even worse.

24 Then Amon’s servants conspired against him, and assassinated him in his palace, 25 but the local people executed all those who’d conspired against King Amon, and made his son Yoshiyah king in his place.