Immerse: Chronicles Full Volume - Flipbook - Page 108
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CHRONICLES
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I set aside for your ancestors.” But Manasseh led the people of Judah and
Jerusalem to do even more evil than the pagan nations that the Lord had
destroyed when the people of Israel entered the land.
The Lord spoke to Manasseh and his people, but they ignored all his
warnings. So the Lord sent the commanders of the Assyrian armies, and
they took Manasseh prisoner. They put a ring through his nose, bound
him in bronze chains, and led him away to Babylon. But while in deep distress, Manasseh sought the Lord his God and sincerely humbled himself
before the God of his ancestors. And when he prayed, the Lord listened to
him and was moved by his request. So the Lord brought Manasseh back
to Jerusalem and to his kingdom. Then Manasseh finally realized that the
Lord alone is God!
After this Manasseh rebuilt the outer wall of the City of Dav id, from
west of the Gihon Spring in the Kidron Valley to the Fish Gate, and
continuing around the hill of Ophel. He built the wall very high. And
he stationed his military officers in all of the fortified towns of Judah.
Manasseh also removed the foreign gods and the idol from the Lord’s
Temple. He tore down all the altars he had built on the hill where the
Temple stood and all the altars that were in Jerusalem, and he dumped
them outside the city. Then he restored the altar of the Lord and sacrificed peace offerings and thanksgiving offerings on it. He also encouraged the people of Judah to worship the Lord, the God of Israel.
However, the people still s acrificed at the pagan shrines, though only to
the Lord their God.
The rest of the events of Manasseh’s reign, his prayer to God, and the
words the seers spoke to him in the name of the Lord, the God of Israel,
are recorded in The Book of the Kings of Israel. Manasseh’s prayer, the account of the way God answered him, and an account of all his sins and
unfaithfulness are recorded in The Record of the Seers. It includes a list of
the locations where he built pagan shrines and set up Asherah poles and
idols before he humbled himself and repented. When Manasseh died, he
was buried in his palace. Then his son Amon became the next king.
Amon was t wenty-two years old when he became king, and he reigned
in Jerusalem two years. He did what was evil in the Lord’s sight, just as
his father, Manasseh, had done. He worshiped and sacrificed to all the
idols his father had made. But unlike his father, he did not humble himself
before the Lord. Instead, Amon sinned even more.
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