The Message Bible MSG
English Standard Version ESV
1 Manasseh was twelve years old when he became king. He ruled for fifty-five years in Jerusalem.
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Manasseh was twelve years old when he began to reign, and he reigned fifty-five years in Jerusalem.
2 In God's opinion he was a bad king - an evil king. He reintroduced all the moral rot and spiritual corruption that had been scoured from the country when God dispossessed the pagan nations in favor of the children of Israel.
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And he did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, according to the abominations of the nations whom the Lord drove out before the people of Israel.
3 He rebuilt the sex-and-religion shrines that his father Hezekiah had torn down, he built altars and phallic images for the sex god Baal and the sex goddess Asherah and worshiped the cosmic powers, taking orders from the constellations.
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For he rebuilt the high places that his father Hezekiah had broken down, and he erected altars to the Baals, and made Asheroth, and worshiped all the host of heaven and served them.
4 He built shrines to the cosmic powers and placed them in both courtyards of The Temple of God,
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And he built altars in the house of the Lord, of which the Lord had said, “In Jerusalem shall my name be forever. ”
5 the very Jerusalem Temple dedicated exclusively by God's decree to God's Name ("in Jerusalem I place my Name").
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And he built altars for all the host of heaven in the two courts of the house of the Lord.
6 He burned his own sons in a sacrificial rite in the Valley of Ben Hinnom. He practiced witchcraft and fortunetelling. He held sŽances and consulted spirits from the underworld. Much evil - in God's view a career in evil. And God was angry.
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And he burned his sons as an offering in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, and used fortune-telling and omens and sorcery, and dealt with mediums and with necromancers. He did much evil in the sight of the Lord, provoking him to anger.
7 As a last straw he placed a carved image of the sex goddess Asherah that he had commissioned in The Temple of God, a flagrant and provocative violation of God's well-known command to both David and Solomon, "In this Temple and in this city Jerusalem, my choice out of all the tribes of Israel, I place my Name - exclusively and forever."
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And the carved image of the idol that he had made he set in the house of God, of which God said to David and to Solomon his son, “In this house, and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, I will put my name forever,
8 He had promised, "Never again will I let my people Israel wander off from this land I've given to their ancestors. But on this condition, that they keep everything I've commanded in the instructions my servant Moses passed on to them."
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and I will no more remove the foot of Israel from the land that I appointed for your fathers, if only they will be careful to do all that I have commanded them, all the law, the statutes, and the rules given through Moses. ”
9 But Manasseh led Judah and the citizens of Jerusalem off the beaten path into practices of evil exceeding even the evil of the pagan nations that God had earlier destroyed.
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Manasseh led Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem astray, to do more evil than the nations whom the Lord destroyed before the people of Israel.
10 When God spoke to Manasseh and his people about this, they ignored him.
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The Lord spoke to Manasseh and to his people, but they paid no attention.
11 Then God directed the leaders of the troops of the king of Assyria to come after Manasseh. They put a hook in his nose, shackles on his feet, and took him off to Babylon.
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Therefore the Lord brought upon them the commanders of the army of the king of Assyria, who captured Manasseh with hooks and bound him with chains of bronze and brought him to Babylon.
12 Now that he was in trouble, he went to his knees in prayer asking for help - total repentance before the God of his ancestors.
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And when he was in distress, he entreated the favor of the Lord his God and humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers.
13 As he prayed, God was touched; God listened and brought him back to Jerusalem as king. That convinced Manasseh that God was in control.
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He prayed to him, and God was moved by his entreaty and heard his plea and brought him again to Jerusalem into his kingdom. Then Manasseh knew that the Lord was God.
14 After that Manasseh rebuilt the outside defensive wall of the City of David to the west of the Gihon spring in the valley. It went from the Fish Gate and around the hill of Ophel. He also increased its height. He tightened up the defense system by posting army captains in all the fortress cities of Judah.
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Afterward he built an outer wall for the city of David west of Gihon, in the valley, and for the entrance into the Fish Gate, and carried it around Ophel, and raised it to a very great height. He also put commanders of the army in all the fortified cities in Judah.
15 He also did a good spring cleaning on The Temple, carting out the pagan idols and the goddess statue. He took all the altars he had set up on The Temple hill and throughout Jerusalem and dumped them outside the city.
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And he took away the foreign gods and the idol from the house of the Lord, and all the altars that he had built on the mountain of the house of the Lord and in Jerusalem, and he threw them outside of the city.
16 He put the Altar of God back in working order and restored worship, sacrificing Peace-Offerings and Thank-Offerings. He issued orders to the people: "You shall serve and worship God, the God of Israel."
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He also restored the altar of the Lord and offered on it sacrifices of peace offerings and of thanksgiving, and he commanded Judah to serve the Lord, the God of Israel.
17 But the people didn't take him seriously - they used the name "God" but kept on going to the old pagan neighborhood shrines and doing the same old things.
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Nevertheless, the people still sacrificed at the high places, but only to the Lord their God.
18 The rest of the history of Manasseh - his prayer to his God, and the sermons the prophets personally delivered by authority of God, the God of Israel - this is all written in The Chronicles of the Kings of Israel.
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Now the rest of the acts of Manasseh, and his prayer to his God, and the words of the seers who spoke to him in the name of the Lord, the God of Israel, behold, they are in the Chronicles of the Kings of Israel.
19 His prayer and how God was touched by his prayer, a list of all his sins and the things he did wrong, the actual places where he built the pagan shrines, the installation of the sex-goddess Asherah sites, and the idolatrous images that he worshiped previous to his conversion - this is all described in the records of the prophets.
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And his prayer, and how God was moved by his entreaty, and all his sin and his faithlessness, and the sites on which he built high places and set up the Asherim and the images, before he humbled himself, behold, they are written in the Chronicles of the Seers.
20 When Manasseh died, they buried him in the palace garden. His son Amon was the next king.
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So Manasseh slept with his fathers, and they buried him in his house, and Amon his son reigned in his place.
21 Amon was twenty-two years old when he became king. He was king for two years in Jerusalem.
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Amon was twenty-two years old when he began to reign, and he reigned two years in Jerusalem.
22 In God's opinion he lived an evil life, just like his father Manasseh,
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And he did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, as Manasseh his father had done. Amon sacrificed to all the images that Manasseh his father had made, and served them.
23 but he never did repent to God as Manasseh repented. He just kept at it, going from one thing to another.
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And he did not humble himself before the Lord, as Manasseh his father had humbled himself, but this Amon incurred guilt more and more.
24 In the end Amon's servants revolted and assassinated him - killed the king right in his own palace.
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And his servants conspired against him and put him to death in his house.
25 The citizens in their turn then killed the king's assassins. The citizens then crowned Josiah, Amon's son, as king.
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But the people of the land struck down all those who had conspired against King Amon. And the people of the land made Josiah his son king in his place.
Published by permission. Originally published by NavPress in English as THE MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary Language copyright 2002 by Eugene Peterson. All rights reserved.
The Holy Bible, English Standard Version® (ESV®) © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. All rights reserved. ESV Text Edition: 2025