2 Chronicles 33:11-19
New Catholic Bible
11 Manasseh’s Conversion. Therefore, the Lord brought against them the commanders of the army of the king of Assyria. They took Manasseh captive with hooks, shackled him with chains, and brought him to Babylon.[a] 12 In his distress, he entreated the mercy of the Lord, his God, and humbled himself greatly before the God of his ancestors. 13 After praying to him, the Lord was moved by his entreaty. Having accepted his supplication, he restored him to his kingdom in Jerusalem. Then Manasseh fully understood that the Lord is indeed God.
14 Afterward, Manasseh built an outer wall for the City of David, to the west of Gihon in the valley, and he extended it up to the entrance by the Fish Gate and encircling Ophel, raising it to a great height. He also stationed military commanders in all the fortified towns of Judah. 15 Furthermore, he removed the foreign gods and the idol from the house of the Lord, as well as all the altars that he had built on the mountain of the house of the Lord and in Jerusalem, and he cast them outside the city.
16 Manasseh also restored the altar of the Lord, and upon that altar he sacrificed peace offerings and thanksgiving offerings, while at the same time commanding Judah to serve the Lord, the God of Israel. 17 Though the people continued to sacrifice at the high places, they now did so only to the Lord, their God.
18 The rest of the acts of Manasseh, his prayer to his God, and the prophecies of the seers[b] who spoke to him, in the name of the Lord, the God of Israel, can be found in the annals of the kings of Israel. 19 His prayer and how God was moved by his entreaty, all his sins and his infidelity, and the sites where he built high places and set up sacred poles and idols before he humbled himself, can be found recorded in the chronicles of the seers.[c]
Read full chapterFootnotes
- 2 Chronicles 33:11 We would expect the name of Nineveh, not of Babylon. Rather than suspecting some confusion, we should see a confirmation of the accurate information of the writer. Manasseh may in fact have gone to Babylon, for it is known that at that period the Assyrian sovereigns frequently stayed in Babylon, in whose fidelity, they had little confidence.
- 2 Chronicles 33:18 The seers: the prophets.
- 2 Chronicles 33:19 Chronicles of the seers: most Hebrew manuscripts read “Hozai,” an unknown prophet. Perhaps the Uzza of 2 Ki 21:18 is meant. The prayer of Manasseh to his God is not the “prayer of Manasseh” that is contained in the extracanonical appendix to the Latin Bible.
