2 Chronicles 33:1-9 ▼

1 Manasseh began to reign at the age of twelve years, and continued to reign for 55 years in Jerusalem.

2 But he practiced what the LORD considered to be evil by behaving detestably, as did the nations whom the LORD expelled in front of the Israelis.

3 He re-established the high places that his father Hezekiah had demolished, he built altars to the Baals, erected Asherim, and worshipped and served the armies of heaven.

4 He also built altars in the LORD's Temple, about which the LORD had spoken |My name will reside in Jerusalem forever.|

5 He built altars for all the armies of heaven in the two courtyards of the LORD's Temple.

6 He burned his sons as an offering in the Ben-hinnom Valley, practiced fortune-telling, witchcraft, sorcery, and communicated with mediums and separatists. He did a lot of things that the LORD considered to be evil, thus provoking him.

7 He also placed an image that he had carved in God's Temple, the place about which God had told to David and to his son Solomon, |I will place my name in this Temple and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel,|

8 and |I won't let Israel's foothold slip on the land that I've given to your ancestors, if only they will be careful to keep everything that I commanded them in the Law, in the statutes, and in the ordinance through Moses.|

9 This is how Manasseh deceived Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem to practice more evil than the nations whom the LORD had eliminated in front of the Israelis.