5
He built altars to the whole heavenly host in both courtyards of the Lord's temple.
6
He passed his sons through the fire in the Valley of Hinnom. He practiced witchcraft, divination, and sorcery, and consulted mediums and spiritists. He did a great deal of evil in the Lord's sight, provoking Him.
7
Manasseh set up a carved image of the idol he had made, in God's temple, about which God had said to David and his son Solomon: "I will establish My name forever in this temple and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel.
8
I will never again remove the feet of the Israelites from upon the land where I stationed your ancestors, if only they will be careful to do all that I have commanded them through Moses-all the law, statutes, and judgments."
9
So Manasseh caused Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem to stray so that they did worse evil than the nations the Lord had destroyed before the Israelites.
Manasseh's Repentance
10 The Lord spoke to Manasseh and his people, but they didn't listen.
11
So He brought against them the military commanders of the king of Assyria. They captured Manasseh with hooks, bound him with bronze [shackles], and took him to Babylon.
12
When he was in distress, he sought the favor of the Lord his God and earnestly humbled himself before the God of his ancestors.
13
He prayed to Him, so He heard his petition and granted his request, and brought him back to Jerusalem, to his kingdom. So Manasseh came to know that the Lord is God.
14
After this, he built the outer wall of the city of David from west of Gihon in the valley to the entrance of the Fish Gate; he brought it around the Ophel, and he heightened it considerably. He also placed military commanders in all the fortified cities of Judah.
15
He removed the foreign gods and the idol from the Lord's temple, along with all the altars that he had built on the mountain of the Lord's temple and in Jerusalem, and he threw them outside the city.