33:1 Manasseh was twelve years old when he became king, and he reigned for fifty-five years in Jerusalem. ¹  33:2 He did evil in the sight of ²  the Lord and committed the same horrible sins practiced by the nations ³  whom the Lord drove out ahead of the Israelites. 33:3 He rebuilt the high places that his father Hezekiah had destroyed; he set up altars for the Baals and made Asherah poles. He bowed down to all the stars in the sky ⁴  and worshiped ⁵  them. 33:4 He built altars in the Lord’s temple, about which the Lord had said, “Jerusalem will be my permanent home.” ⁶  33:5 In the two courtyards of the Lord’s temple he built altars for all the stars in the sky. 33:6 He passed his sons through the fire ⁷  in the Valley of Ben-Hinnom and practiced divination, omen reading, and sorcery. He set up a ritual pit to conjure up underworld spirits and appointed magicians to supervise it. ⁸  He did a great amount of evil in the sight of the Lord and angered him. ⁹  33:7 He put an idolatrous image he had made in God’s temple, about which God had said to David and to his son Solomon, “This temple in Jerusalem, which I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, will be my permanent home. ¹⁰  33:8 I will not make Israel again leave the land I gave to their ancestors, ¹¹  provided that they carefully obey all I commanded them, the whole law, the rules and regulations given to Moses.” 33:9 But Manasseh misled the people of ¹²  Judah and the residents of Jerusalem so that they sinned more than the nations whom the Lord had destroyed ahead of the Israelites.