Study Desk

And for everything he undertook, in connection with the work of the house of God and his law and orders, he got directions from God and did it with serious purpose; and things went well for him.

With him is an arm of flesh; but we have the Lord our God, helping us and fighting for us. And the people put their faith in what Hezekiah, king of Judah, said.

Is it not Hezekiah who has got you to do it, causing your death from need of food and water, by saying, The Lord our God will give us salvation out of the hands of the king of Assyria?

Who was there among all the gods of those nations, which my fathers put to destruction, who was able to keep his people safe from my hands? and is it possible that your God will keep you safe from my hands?

So do not be tricked by Hezekiah or let him get you to do this, and do not put any faith in what he says: for no god of any nation or kingdom has been able to keep his people safe from my hands, or the hands of my fathers: how much less will your God keep you safe from my hands!

And his servants said even more against the Lord God and against his servant Hezekiah.

And he sent letters, in addition, to put shame on the Lord, the God of Israel, and to say evil against him, saying, As the gods of the nations of other lands have not been able to keep their people safe from my hands, no more will the God of Hezekiah keep his people safe from my hands.

Talking of the God of Jerusalem as if he was like the gods of the peoples of the earth, the work of men's hands.

And the Lord sent an angel who put to death all the men of war and the chiefs and the captains in the army of the king of Assyria. So he went back to his country in shame. And when he came into the house of his god, his sons, the offspring of his body, put him to death there with the sword.

And he made towns for himself, and got together much property in flocks and herds: for God had given him great wealth.

However, in the business of the representatives sent by the rulers of Babylon to get news of the wonder which had taken place in the land, God gave up guiding him, testing him to see what was in his heart.

And he put the image he had made in the house of God, the house of which God had said to David and to Solomon his son, In this house, and in Jerusalem, the town which I have made mine out of all the tribes of Israel, will I put my name for ever:

And crying out to the Lord his God in his trouble, he made himself low before the God of his fathers,

And made prayer to him; and in answer to his prayer God let him come back to Jerusalem and to his kingdom. Then Manasseh was certain that the Lord was God.

And he put the altar of the Lord in order, offering peace-offerings and praise-offerings on it, and said that all Judah were to be servants of the Lord, the God of Israel.

However, the people still made offerings in the high places, but only to the Lord their God.

Now the rest of the acts of Manasseh, and his prayer to his God, and the words which the seers said to him in the name of the Lord, the God of Israel, are recorded among the acts of the kings of Israel.

And the prayer which he made to God, and how God gave him an answer, and all his sin and his wrongdoing, and the places where he made high places and put up pillars of wood and images, before he put away his pride, are recorded in the history of the seers.

In the eighth year of his rule, while he was still young, his heart was first turned to the God of his father David; and in the twelfth year he undertook the clearing away of all the high places and the pillars and the images of wood and metal from Judah and Jerusalem.

Now in the eighteenth year of his rule, when the land and the house had been made clean, he sent Shaphan, the son of Azaliah, and Maaseiah, the ruler of the town, and Joah, the son of Joahaz, the recorder, to make good what was damaged in the house of the Lord his God.