The Divided Kingdom

And when he is in distress he hath appeased the face of Jehovah his God, and is humbled exceedingly before the God of his fathers,

and prayeth unto Him, and He is entreated of him, and heareth his supplication, and bringeth him back to Jerusalem, to his kingdom, and Manasseh knoweth that Jehovah--He is God.

And after this he hath built an outer wall to the city of David, on the west of Gihon, in the valley, and at the entering in at the fish-gate, and it hath gone round to the tower, and he maketh it exceeding high, and he putteth heads of the force in all the cities of the bulwarks in Judah.

And he turneth aside the gods of the stranger, and the idol, out of the house of Jehovah, and all the altars that he had built in the mount of the house of Jehovah and in Jerusalem, and casteth them to the outside of the city.

And he buildeth the altar of Jehovah, and sacrificeth upon it sacrifices of peace-offerings and thank-offering, and saith to Judah to serve Jehovah, God of Israel;

but still the people are sacrificing in high places, only--to Jehovah their God.

And the rest of the matters of Manasseh, and his prayer unto his God, and the matters of the seers, those speaking unto him in the name of Jehovah, God of Israel, lo, they are on the book of the matters of the kings of Israel;

and his prayer, and his entreaty, and all his sin, and his trespass, and the places in which he had built high places, and established the shrines and the graven images before his being humbled, lo, they are written beside the matters of Hozai.

And Manasseh lieth with his fathers, and they bury him in his own house, and reign doth Amon his son in his stead.

A son of twenty and two years is Amon in his reigning, and two years he hath reigned in Jerusalem,

and he doth the evil thing in the eyes of Jehovah, as did Manasseh his father, and to all the graven images that Manasseh his father had made hath Amon sacrificed, and serveth them,

and hath not been humbled before Jehovah, like the humbling of Manasseh his father, for Amon himself hath multiplied guilt.

And his servants conspire against him, and put him to death in his own house,

and the people of the land smite all those conspiring against king Amon, and the people of the land cause Josiah his son to reign in his stead.

A son of eight years is Josiah in his reigning, and thirty and one years he hath reigned in Jerusalem,

and he doth that which is right in the eyes of Jehovah, and walketh in the ways of David his father, and hath not turned aside--right or left.

And in the eighth year of his reign (and he yet a youth), he hath begun to seek to the God of David his father, and in the twelfth year he hath begun to cleanse Judah and Jerusalem from the high places, and the shrines, and the graven images, and the molten images.

And they break down before him the altars of the Baalim, and the images that are on high above them he hath cut down, and the shrines, and the graven images, and the molten images, he hath broken and beaten small, and streweth on the surface of the graves of those sacrificing to them,

and the bones of the priests he hath burnt on their altars, and cleanseth Judah and Jerusalem,

and in the cities of Manasseh, and Ephraim, and Simeon, even unto Naphtali, with their tools, round about.

And he breaketh down the altars and the shrines, and the graven images he hath beaten down very small, and all the images he hath cut down in all the land of Israel, and turneth back to Jerusalem.

And in the eighteenth year of his reign, to purify the land and the house he hath sent Shaphan son of Azaliah, and Maaseiah head of the city, and Joah son of Johaz the remembrancer, to strengthen the house of Jehovah his God.

And they come in unto Hilkiah the high priest, and they give the money that is brought in to the house of God, that the Levites, keeping the threshold, have gathered from the hand of Manasseh, and Ephraim, and from all the remnant of Israel, and from all Judah, and Benjamin, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem,

and they give it into the hand of the workmen, those appointed over the house of Jehovah, and they give it to the workmen who are working in the house of Jehovah, to repair and to strengthen the house;

and they give it to artificers, and to builders, to buy hewn stones, and wood for couplings and for beams to the houses that the kings of Judah had destroyed.