God

And he made his sons to pass through the fire in the valley of Benennom: he observed dreams, followed divinations, gave himself up to magic arts, had with him magicians, and enchanters: and he wrought many evils before the Lord, to provoke him to anger.

He set also a graven, and a molten statue in the house of God, of which God had 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, will I put my name for ever.

And I will not make the foot of Israel to be removed out of the land which I have delivered to their fathers: yet so if they will take heed to do what I have commanded them, and all the law, and the ceremonies, and judgments by the hand of Moses.

So Manasses seduced Juda, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, to do evil beyond all the nations, which the Lord had destroyed before the face of the children of Israel.

And the Lord spoke to his people, and they would not hearken.

Therefore he brought upon them the captains of he army of the king of the Assyrians: and they took Manasses, and carried him bound with chains and fetters to Babylon.

And after that he was in distress he prayed to the Lord his God: and did penance exceedingly before the God of his fathers.

And he entreated him, and besought him earnestly: and he heard his prayer, and brought him again to Jerusalem into his kingdom, and Manasses knew that the Lord was God.

And he took away the strange gods, and the idol out of the house of the Lord: the altars also which he had made in the mount of the house of the Lord, and in Jerusalem, and he cast them all out of the city.

And he repaired the altar of the Lord, and sacrificed upon it victims, and peace offerings, and praise: and he commanded Juda to serve the Lord the God of Israel.

Nevertheless the people still sacrificed in the high places to the Lord their God.

But the rest of the acts of Manasses, and his prayer to his God, and the words of the seers that spoke to him in the name of the Lord the God of Israel, are contained in the words of the kings of Israel.

His prayer also, and his being heard and all his sins, and contempt, and places wherein he built high places, and set up groves, and statues before he did penance, are written in the words of Hozai.

And he did evil in the sight of the Lord, as Manasses his father had done: he sacrificed to all the idols which Manasses his father had made, and served them.

And he did not humble himself before the lord, as Manasses his father had humbled himself, but committed far greater sin.

And he did that which was right in the sight of the Lord, and walked in the ways of David his father: he declined not, neither to the right hand, nor to the left.

And in the eighth year of his reign, when he was yet a boy, he began to seek the God of his father David: and in the twelfth year after he began to reign, he cleansed Juda and Jerusalem from the high places, and the groves, and the idols, and the graven things.

Now in the eighteenth year of his reign, when he had cleansed the land, and the temple of the Lord, he sent Saphan the son of Elselias, and Maasias the governor of the city, Joha the son of Joachaz the recorder, to repair the house of the Lord his God.

And they came to Helcias the high priest: and received of him the money which had been brought into the house of the Lord, and which the Levites and porters had gathered together from Manasses, and Ephraim, and all the remnant of Israel, and from all Juda, and Benjamin, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem,

Which they delivered into the hands of them that were over the workmen in the house of the Lord, to repair the temple, and mend all that was weak.

Now when they carried out the money that had been brought into the temple of the Lord, Helcias the priest found the book of the law of the Lord, by the hand of Moses.

And he said to Saphan the scribe: I have found the book of the law in the house of the Lord: and he delivered it to him.

They have gathered together the silver that was found in the house of the Lord: and it is given to the overseers of the artificers, and of the workmen, for divers works.

Go, and pray to the Lord for me, and for the remnant of Israel, and Juda, concerning all the words of this book, which is found: for the great wrath of the Lord hath fallen upon us, because our fathers have not kept the words of the Lord, to do all things that are written in this book.

And she answered them: Thus saith the Lord the God of Israel: Tell the man that sent you to me: