O LORD, we are covered with shame—our kings, our leaders, and our fathers—because we have sinned against You.
See how every prince of Israel within you has used his power to shed blood.
Her priests do violence to My law and profane My holy things. They make no distinction between the holy and the common, and they fail to distinguish between the clean and the unclean. They disregard My Sabbaths, so that I am profaned among them.
Manasseh also built altars in the house of the LORD, of which the LORD had said, “My Name will remain in Jerusalem forever.”
The godly man has perished from the earth; there is no one upright among men. They all lie in wait for blood; they hunt one another with a net.
I will go to the powerful and speak to them. Surely they know the way of the LORD, the justice of their God.” But they too, with one accord, had broken the yoke and torn off the chains.
Then the officials said to the king, “This man ought to die, for he is discouraging the warriors who remain in this city, as well as all the people, by speaking such words to them; this man is not seeking the well-being of these people, but their ruin.”
Then I said: “Hear now, O leaders of Jacob, you rulers of the house of Israel. Should you not know justice?
From the days of our fathers to this day, our guilt has been great. Because of our iniquities, we and our kings and priests have been delivered into the hands of the kings of the earth and subjected to the sword and to captivity, to pillage and humiliation, as we are this day.
So Manasseh led the people of Judah and Jerusalem astray, so that they did greater evil than the nations that the LORD had destroyed before the Israelites.
Moreover, Ahaz burned incense in the Valley of Ben-hinnom and sacrificed his sons in the fire, according to the abominations of the nations that the LORD had driven out before the Israelites.
We have not listened to Your servants the prophets, who spoke in Your name to our kings, leaders, fathers, and all the people of the land.