Immerse: Kingdoms Full Volume - Flipbook - Page 274
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IMMERSE
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KINGDOMS
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| 20:19–21:13
Then Hezekiah said to Isaiah, “This message you have given me from
the Lord is good.” For the king was thinking, “At least there will be peace
and security during my lifetime.”
The rest of the events in Hezekiah’s reign, including the extent of his power
and how he built a pool and dug a tunnel to bring water into the city, are
recorded in The Book of the History of the Kings of Judah. Hezekiah died,
and his son Manasseh became the next king.
Manasseh was twelve years old when he became king, and he reigned in
Jerusalem fi fty-five years. His mother was Hephzibah. He did what was
evil in the Lord’s sight, following the detestable practices of the pagan
nations that the Lord had driven from the land ahead of the Israelites.
He rebuilt the pagan shrines his father, Hezekiah, had destroyed. He constructed altars for Baal and set up an Asherah pole, just as King Ahab of
Israel had done. He also bowed before all the powers of the heavens and
worshiped them.
He built pagan altars in the Temple of the Lord, the place where the
Lord had said, “My name will remain in Jerusalem forever.” He built these
altars for all the powers of the heavens in both courtyards of the Lord’s
Temple. Manasseh also sacrificed his own son in the fire. He practiced
sorcery and divination, and he consulted with mediums and psychics. He
did much that was evil in the Lord’s sight, arousing his anger.
Manasseh even made a carved image of Asherah and set it up in the Temple,
the very place where the Lord had told David and his son Solomon: “My
name will be honored forever in this Temple and in Jerusalem—the city I
have chosen from among all the tribes of Israel. If the Israelites will be careful to obey my commands—all the laws my servant M
oses gave t hem—I
will not send them into exile from this land that I gave their ancestors.” But
the people refused to listen, and Manasseh led them to do even more evil
than the pagan nations that the Lord had destroyed when the people of
Israel entered the land.
Then the Lord said through his servants the prophets: “King Manas
seh of Judah has done many detestable things. He is even more wicked
than the Amorites, who lived in this land before Israel. He has caused the
people of Judah to sin with his idols. So this is what the Lord, the God of
Israel, says: I will bring such disaster on Jerusalem and Judah that the ears
of those who hear about it will tingle with horror. I will judge Jerusalem
by the same standard I used for Samaria and the same measure I used for