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."