The wickedest king of Judah got a do-over prayer. 2 Chronicles says King Manasseh, taken captive to Babylon in chains, "besought the LORD his God, and humbled himself greatly… and his prayer was heard" — but the Bible never records what he said. This short book supplies those words, and they became a model of repentance: "Thou hast appointed repentance unto me, a sinner… O Lord, I am in trouble." Probably composed in the second or first century BC, it traveled widely — quoted by early writers, tucked into medieval prayer books, and printed in the Apocrypha sections of early English Bibles.

This book is also available in the Revised Version (1895) — modern spelling.