The Lord afflicted the king with an illness; he suffered from a skin disease ¹  until the day he died. He lived in separate quarters, ²  while his son Jotham was in charge of the palace and ruled over the people of the land.

(At that time King Rezin of Syria ¹  recovered Elat for Syria; he drove the Judahites from there. ²  Syrians ³  arrived in Elat and live there to this very day.)

Uriah the priest built an altar in conformity to the plans King Ahaz had sent from Damascus. ¹  Uriah the priest finished it before King Ahaz arrived back from Damascus. ² 

The Israelites said things about the Lord their God that were not right. ¹  They built high places in all their cities, from the watchtower to the fortress. ² 

To this very day they observe their earlier practices. They do not worship ¹  the Lord; they do not obey the rules, regulations, law, and commandments that the Lord gave ²  the descendants of Jacob, whom he renamed Israel.

These nations are worshiping the Lord and at the same time serving their idols; their sons and grandsons do just as their fathers have done, to this very day.

He eliminated the high places, smashed the sacred pillars to bits, and cut down the Asherah pole. ¹  He also demolished the bronze serpent that Moses had made, for up to that time ²  the Israelites had been offering incense to it; it was called Nehushtan. ³ 

until I come and take you to a land just like your own – a land of grain and new wine, a land of bread and vineyards, a land of olive trees and honey. Then you will live and not die. Don’t listen to Hezekiah, for he is misleading you when he says, “The Lord will rescue us.”

“This is what Hezekiah says: ¹  ‘This is a day of distress, insults, ²  and humiliation, ³  as when a baby is ready to leave the birth canal, but the mother lacks the strength to push it through. ⁴ 

‘Look, a time is ¹  coming when everything in your palace and the things your ancestors have accumulated to this day will be carried away to Babylon; nothing will be left,’ says the Lord.

Furthermore Manasseh killed so many innocent people, he stained Jerusalem with their blood from end to end, ¹  in addition to encouraging Judah to sin by doing evil in the sight of the Lord. ² 

The king went up to the Lord’s temple, accompanied by all the people of Judah, all the residents of Jerusalem, the priests, and the prophets. All the people were there, from the youngest to the oldest. He read aloud ¹  all the words of the scroll of the covenant that had been discovered in the Lord’s temple.

The king of Egypt did not march out from his land again, for the king of Babylon conquered all the territory that the king of Egypt had formerly controlled between the Brook of Egypt and the Euphrates River.

He brought all the priests from the cities of Judah and ruined ¹  the high places where the priests had offered sacrifices, from Geba to Beer Sheba. ²  He tore down the high place of the goat idols ³  situated at the entrance of the gate of Joshua, the city official, on the left side of the city gate.