The wickedness of Manasses: God’s threats by his prophets. His wicked
son Amon succeedeth him, and is slain by his servants.
21:1. Manasses was twelve years old when he began to reign, and he
reigned five and fifty years in Jerusalem: the name of his mother was
Haphsiba.
21:2. And he did evil in the sight of the Lord, according to the idols
of the nations, which the Lord destroyed from before the face of the
children of Israel.
21:3. And he turned, and built up the high places, which Ezechias, his
father, had destroyed: and he set up altars to Baal, and made groves,
as Achab, the king of Israel, had done: and he adored all the host of
heaven, and served them.
21:4. And he built altars in the house of the Lord, of which the Lord
said: In Jerusalem I will put my name.
21:5. And he built altars for all the host of heaven, in the two courts
of the temple of the Lord.
21:6. And he made his son pass through fire: and he used divinations,
and observed omens, and appointed pythons, and multiplied soothsayers,
to do evil before the Lord, and to provoke him.
Pythons.... That is, diviners by spirits.
21:7. He set also an idol of the grove, which he had made, in the
temple of the Lord: concerning which the Lord said to David, and to
Solomon his son: In this temple, and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen
out of all the tribes of Israel, I will put my name for ever.
21:8. And I will no more make the feet of Israel to be moved out of the
land, which I gave to their fathers: only if they will observe to do
all that I have commanded them, according to the law which my servant
Moses commanded them.
21:9. But they hearkened not: but were seduced by Manasses, to do evil
more than the nations which the Lord destroyed before the children of
Israel.
21:10. And the Lord spoke in the hand of his servants, the prophets,
saying:
21:11. Because Manasses, king of Juda, hath done these most wicked
abominations, beyond all that the Amorrhites did before him, and hath
made Juda also to sin with his filthy doings:
21:12. Therefore thus saith the Lord, the God of Israel: Behold, I will
bring on evils upon Jerusalem and Juda: that whosoever shall hear of
them, both his ears shall tingle.
21:13. And I will stretch over Jerusalem the line of Samaria, and the
weight of the house of Achab: and I will efface Jerusalem, as writings
tables are wont to be effaced, and I will erase and turn it, and draw
the pencil often over the face thereof.
21:14. And I will leave the remnants of my inheritance, and will
deliver them into the hands of their enemies: and they shall become a
prey, and a spoil to all their enemies.
21:15. Because they have done evil before me, and have continued to
provoke me, from the day that their fathers came out of Egypt, even
unto this day.
21:16. Moreover, Manasses shed also very much innocent blood, till he
filled Jerusalem up to the mouth: besides his sins, wherewith he made
Juda to sin, to do evil before the Lord.
21:17. Now the rest of the acts of Manasses, and all that he did, and
his sin, which he sinned, are they not written in the book of the words
of the days of the kings of Juda?
21:18. And Manasses slept with his fathers, and was buried in the
garden of his own house, in the garden of Oza: and Amon, his son,
reigned in his stead.
21:19. Two and twenty years old was Amon when he began to reign, and he
reigned two years in Jerusalem: the name of his mother was Messalemeth,
the daughter of Harus, of Jeteba.
21:20. And he did evil in the sight of the Lord, as Manasses, his
father, had done.
21:21. And he walked in all the way in which his father had walked: and
he served the abominations which his father had served, and he adored
them.
21:22. And forsook the Lord, the God of his fathers, and walked not in
the way of the Lord.
21:23. And his servants plotted against him, and slew the king in his
own house.
21:24. But the people of the land slew all them that had conspired
against king Amon: and made Josias, his son, their king in his stead.
21:25. But the rest of the acts of Amon, which he did, are they not
written in the book of the words of the days of the kings of Juda?
21:26. And they buried him in his sepulchre, in the garden of Oza: and
his son, Josias, reigned in his stead.