A reading from the book of Second Kings.

Manasseh was 12 years old when he began to reign, and he reigned 55 years in Jerusalem.

His mother's name was Hefzeba, and he did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, according to the despicable practices of the nations, whom the Lord drove out before the people of Israel,

for he rebuilt the high places that Hezekiah

his father had destroyed, and he erected altars for bail, and made an Asherah, as Ahad king of Israel had done,

and worshipped all the host of heaven and served them. And he built altars in the house of the

Lord, of which the Lord had said, in Jerusalem will I put my name? And he built altars for all the host of

heaven in the two courts of the house of the Lord. And he burned his son as an offering, and used

fortune-telling and omens, and dealt with mediums and with necromancers. He did much evil in the sight

of the Lord, provoking him to anger. And the carved image of Ashera that he had made, he said 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 forever, and I will not cause the feet of Israel to

wander any more 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. But they did not listen, and Manasseh let them astray to do more evil than the nations

had done, whom the Lord destroyed before the people of Israel. And the Lord said by his servants,

the prophets, because Manasa, king of Judah, has committed

these abominations, and has done things more evil than all that the Amorites did who were before him,

and has made Judah also to sin with his idols. Therefore, thus says the Lord, the God of Israel.

Behold, I am bringing upon Jerusalem and Judah such disaster that the ears of everyone who hears

of it will tingle. And I will stretch over Jerusalem the measuring line of Samaria and the plum line

of the house of Ahab, and I will wipe Jerusalem as one wipes a dish, wiping it and turning it upside

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