1. Manasseh was 12 years old when he became king, and he ruled for fifty-five years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Hephzibah.
2. He did what was evil in the Lord’s eyes, imitating the detestable practices of the nations that the Lord had driven out before the Israelites.
3. He rebuilt the shrines that his father Hezekiah had destroyed, set up altars for Baal, and made a sacred pole, just as Israel’s King Ahab had done. He bowed down to all the stars in the sky and worshipped them.
4. He even built altars in the two courtyards of the Lord’s temple—the very place the Lord was speaking of when he said: "I will put my name in Jerusalem."
5. Manasseh built altars for all the stars in the sky in both courtyards of the Lord’s temple.
6. He burned his own son alive, consulted sign readers and fortune-tellers, and used mediums and diviners. He did much evil in the Lord’s eyes and made him angry.
7. Manasseh set up the carved Asherah image he had made in the temple—the very temple the Lord had spoken about to David and his son Solomon, saying, In this temple and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen out of all Israel’s tribes, I will put my name forever.
8. I will never again remove Israel from the land I gave to their ancestors, provided they carefully do everything I have commanded them—keeping all the Instruction my servant Moses commanded them.
9. But they wouldn’t listen. Manasseh led them into doing even more evil than the nations the Lord had wiped out before the Israelites.
10. The Lord spoke through his servants the prophets: