2 Kings 20:16-21:8

English Standard Version

¹⁶Then Isaiah said to Hezekiah, “Hear the word of the Lord: ¹⁷Behold, the days are coming, when ^(A)all that is in your house, and that which your fathers have stored up till this day, shall be carried to Babylon. Nothing shall be left, says the Lord. ¹⁸^(B)And some of your own sons, who will come from you, whom you will father, shall be taken away, ^(C)and they shall be eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon.” ¹⁹Then Hezekiah said to Isaiah, ^(D)“The word of the Lord that you have spoken is good.” For he thought, “Why not, if there will be peace and security in my days?”

²⁰^(E)The rest of the deeds of Hezekiah and all his might and how he made ^(F)the pool and the conduit ^(G)and brought water into the city, are they not written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah? ²¹^(H)And Hezekiah slept with his fathers, and Manasseh his son reigned in his place.

Manasseh Reigns in Judah

21 ^(I)Manasseh was twelve years old when he began to reign, and he reigned fifty-five years in Jerusalem. His mother's name was Hephzibah. ²And he did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, ^(J)according to the despicable practices of the nations whom the Lord drove out before the people of Israel. ³For he rebuilt the high places ^(K)that Hezekiah his father had destroyed, and he erected altars for Baal and made ^(L)an Asherah, ^(M)as Ahab king of Israel had done, ^(N)and worshiped all the host of heaven and served them. ⁴^(O)And he built altars in the house of the Lord, of which the Lord had said, ^(P)“In Jerusalem will I put my name.” ⁵And he built altars ^(Q)for all the host of heaven in ^(R)the two courts of the house of the Lord. ⁶^(S)And he burned his son as an offering^[a] and ^(T)used fortune-telling and ^(U)omens and dealt ^(V)with mediums and with necromancers. He did much evil in the sight of the Lord, provoking him to anger. ⁷And the carved image of ^(W)Asherah that he had made he set in the house of which the Lord said to David and to Solomon his son, “In this house, ^(X)and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, I will put my name forever. ⁸^(Y)And I will not cause the feet of Israel to wander anymore out of the land that I gave to their fathers, if only they will be careful to do according to all that I have commanded them, and according to all the Law that my servant Moses commanded them.”