Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

Praise for God’s Goodness to Israel

To the choirmaster. A Song. A Psalm.

Manasseh Reigns over Judah

21 Manas′seh was twelve years old when he began to reign, and he reigned fifty-five years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Heph′zibah. ² And he did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, according to the abominable practices of the nations whom the Lord drove out before the people of Israel. ³ For he rebuilt the high places which Hezeki′ah his father had destroyed; and he erected altars for Ba′al, and made an Ashe′rah, as Ahab king of Israel had done, and worshiped all the host of heaven, and served them. ⁴ And he built altars in the house of the Lord, of which the Lord had said, “In Jerusalem will I put my name.” ⁵ And he built altars for all the host of heaven in the two courts of the house of the Lord. ⁶ And he burned his son as an offering, and practiced soothsaying and augury, and dealt with mediums and with wizards. He did much evil in the sight of the Lord, provoking him to anger. ⁷ And the graven image of Ashe′rah that he had made he set in the house of which the Lord 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, I will put my name for ever; ⁸ and I will not cause the feet of Israel to wander any more out of the land which 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.” ⁹ But they did not listen, and Manas′seh seduced them to do more evil than the nations had done whom the Lord destroyed before the people of Israel.

¹⁰ And the Lord said by his servants the prophets, ¹¹ “Because Manas′seh king of Judah has committed these abominations, and has done things more wicked than all that the Amorites did, who were before him, and has made Judah also to sin with his idols; ¹² therefore thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, Behold, I am bringing upon Jerusalem and Judah such evil that the ears of every one who hears of it will tingle. ¹³ And I will stretch over Jerusalem the measuring line of Samar′ia, and the plummet of the house of Ahab; and I will wipe Jerusalem as one wipes a dish, wiping it and turning it upside down. ¹⁴ And I will cast off the remnant of my heritage, and give them into the hand of their enemies, and they shall become a prey and a spoil to all their enemies, ¹⁵ because they have done what is evil in my sight and have provoked me to anger, since the day their fathers came out of Egypt, even to this day.”

¹⁴ We know that the law is spiritual; but I am carnal, sold under sin. ¹⁵ I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. ¹⁶ Now if I do what I do not want, I agree that the law is good. ¹⁷ So then it is no longer I that do it, but sin which dwells within me. ¹⁸ For I know that nothing good dwells within me, that is, in my flesh. I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. ¹⁹ For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do. ²⁰ Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do it, but sin which dwells within me.

²¹ So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. ²² For I delight in the law of God, in my inmost self, ²³ but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin which dwells in my members. ²⁴ Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? ²⁵ Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I of myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.