Manasseh also killed many innocent people, filling Jerusalem from one end to the other with their blood. This was besides the sin he led Judah to do; he led Judah to do what the Lord said was wrong.
When you raise your arms to me in prayer, I will refuse to look at you. Even if you say many prayers, I will not listen to you, because your hands are full of blood.
“I punished your people, but it did not help. They didn’t come back when they were punished. With your swords you killed your prophets like a hungry lion.
You must not be hard on strangers, orphans, and widows. Don’t kill innocent people in this place! Don’t follow other gods, or they will ruin your lives.
Will you steal and murder and be guilty of adultery? Will you falsely accuse other people? Will you burn incense to the god Baal and follow other gods you have not known?
The people in you take money to kill others. You take unfair interest and profits and make profits by mistreating your neighbor. And you have forgotten me, says the Lord God.
The men in you tell lies to cause the death of others. The people in you eat food offered to idols at the mountain places of worship, and they take part in sexual sins.
Then he said to me, “The sin of the people of Israel and Judah is very great. The land is filled with people who murder, and the city is full of people who are not fair. The people say, ‘The Lord has left the land, and the Lord does not see.’
All of the faithful people are gone; there is not one good person left in this country. Everyone is waiting to kill someone; everyone is trying to trap someone else.
Its officers are like roaring lions. Its rulers are like hungry wolves that attack in the evening, and in the morning nothing is left of those they attacked.
So you will be guilty for the death of all the good people who have been killed on earth—from the murder of that good man Abel to the murder of Zechariah son of Berakiah, whom you murdered between the Temple and the altar.