⁷ He placed a carved image of the goddess Asherah in the Eternal’s temple. It was the very temple that the Eternal had spoken of to David and to Solomon, saying, “My name will dwell in this temple in Jerusalem forever. I have handpicked it from all of Israel’s tribes. ⁸ If the Israelites will honor the commands and laws I have given them through Moses, then I will no longer force them to be apart from the land I promised to their ancestors. They will live peacefully within the promised land.”

⁹ But the Israelites kept their ears and hearts closed to the message of the Lord; and Manasseh caused them to live even more sinful lives than the wicked nations, whom the Eternal annihilated before them, had committed.