Study Desk

Howbeit in the business of the ambassadors of the princes of Babylon, who sent unto him to enquire of the wonder that was done in the land, God left him, to try him, that he might know all that was in his heart.

Now the rest of the acts of Ezechias, and his goodness, behold, they are written in the vision of Isaias the prophet, the son of Amos, and in the book of the kings of Juda and Israel.

And Ezechias slept with his fathers, and they buried him in the chiefest of the sepulchres of the sons of David: and all Juda and the inhabitants of Jerusalem did him honour at his death. And Manasses his son reigned in his stead.

And he turned, and built again the high places which Ezechias his father had destroyed: and he built altars to Baalim, and made groves, and he adored all the host of heaven, and worshipped them.

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

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.

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.

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.

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 when he had heard the words of the law, he rent his garments: