King of Jerusalem, son of Hezekiah,[1] who ruled Judaea for 55 years. He became most abominable and most sacrilegious and most lawless beyond all men through idolatry and bloodshed; and he provoked the great Isaiah and filled Jerusalem with the blood of the innocents, and he worshiped idols no less than the Amorites and utterly defiled the house of the Lord. He set up a four-faced idol of Zeus in it, and he did not cease from augury and mixing potions and being obscene and adulterous and committing every type of wickedness with excess. And on account of this and according to divine anger, he was seized by King Marodach[2] of Babylon and carried off in chains to the city of Nineveh[3] as a captive and shut into a bronze statue. And when he understood that he received a deserved penalty for his faults, he asked the Lord to forgive him for his sins: for [he said] it was not a great praise for the Lord, if he would save the just man; but [it was a sign of a Lord that was] good, if he would accept the repentance of a sinner. And the statue was shattered by divine might. And God blessed the king and sent him out into Jerusalem. And when he returned, having experienced the divine goodness, he overturned every idolatrous tabernacle; he cleansed the sanctuary of God and upheld the law and built walls around the city and founded it anew and managed it justly and righteously. [...]
They gave him a small loaf of bran and a little water with a measure of cheap wine when he was bound and guarded in his bronze fetters in Babylon, so that he would just barely stay alive. [...] And then he prayed to the Lord: "All-ruling Lord [...]"; and God listened to his voice and freed him from his bonds and returned him to Jerusalem; and serving the Lord with his whole heart he was reckoned a just man.