1. Manasseh was 12 years old when he began to rule, and he ruled for 55 years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Hephzibah.
2. He did what the Lord considered evil by copying the disgusting things done by the nations that the Lord had forced out of the Israelites’ way.
3. He rebuilt the illegal places of worship that his father Hezekiah had destroyed. He set up altars dedicated to Baal and made a pole dedicated to the goddess Asherah as King Ahab of Israel had done. Manasseh, like Ahab, worshiped and served the entire army of heaven.
4. He built altars in the Lord’s temple, where the Lord had said, “I will put my name in Jerusalem.”
5. In the two courtyards of the Lord’s temple, he built altars for the entire army of heaven.
6. He burned his son as a sacrifice, consulted fortune tellers, cast evil spells, and appointed ⌊royal⌋ mediums and psychics. He did many things that made the Lord furious.
7. Manasseh had an idol of Asherah made. Then he set it up in the temple, where the Lord had said to David and his son Solomon, “I have chosen this temple and Jerusalem from all the tribes of Israel. I will put my name here forever.
8. I will never again make Israel’s feet wander from the land that I gave to their ancestors if they will obey all the commands and all the Teachings that my servant Moses gave them.”
9. (But they wouldn’t obey.) Manasseh misled Israel so that they did more evil things than the nations that the Lord had destroyed when the Israelites arrived in the land.