The Divided Kingdom

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.

After this he built a wall without the city of David, on the west side of Gihon in the valley, from the entering in of the gate round about to Ophel, and raised it up to a great height: and he appointed captains of the army in all the fenced cities of Juda:

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 Manasses slept with his fathers, and they buried him in his house: and his son Amon reigned in his stead.

Amon was two and twenty years old when he began to reign, and he reigned two years in Jerusalem.

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 his servants conspired against him, and slew him in his own house.

But the rest of the multitude of the people slew them that had killed Amon, and made Josias his son king in his stead.

Josias was eight years old when he began to reign, and he reigned one and thirty years in Jerusalem.

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.

And they broke down before him the altars of Baalim, and demolished the idols that had been set upon them: and he cut down the groves and the graven things, and broke them in pieces: and strewed the fragments upon the graves of them that had sacrificed to them.

And he burnt the bones of the priests on the altars of the idols, and he cleansed Juda and Jerusalem.

And in the cities of Manasses, and of Ephraim, and of Simeon, even to Nephtali he demolished all.

And when he had destroyed the altars, and the groves, and had broken the idols in pieces, and had demolished all profane temples throughout all the land of Israel, he returned to Jerusalem.

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.

But they gave it to the artificers, and to the masons, to buy stones out of the quarries, and timber for the couplings of the building, and to rafter the houses, which the kings of Juda had destroyed.