⁵ “This is what the Lord God says: I have set this Jerusalem in the center of the nations, with countries all around her. ⁶ She has rebelled against my ordinances with more wickedness than the nations, and against my statutes more than the countries that surround her. For her people have rejected my ordinances and have not walked in my statutes.

⁷ “Therefore, this is what the Lord God says: Because you have been more insubordinate than the nations around you^(A)—you have not walked in my statutes or kept my ordinances; you have not even kept the ordinances of the nations around you— ⁸ therefore, this is what the Lord God says: See, I myself am against you, Jerusalem, and I will execute judgments within you in the sight of the nations.

⁹ So Manasseh caused Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem to stray so that they did worse evil than the nations the Lord had destroyed before the Israelites.