¹¹ Behold, you have heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all lands, devoting them to destruction. And shall you be delivered?

¹³ Do you not know what I and my fathers have done to all the peoples of other lands? Were the gods of the nations of those lands at all able to deliver their lands out of my hand? ¹⁴ Who among all the gods of those nations that my fathers devoted to destruction was able to deliver his people from my hand, that your God should be able to deliver you from my hand?

¹⁷ Truly, O Lord, the kings of Assyria have laid waste the nations and their lands ¹⁸ and have cast their gods into the fire, for they were not gods, ^(A)but the work of men's hands, wood and stone. Therefore they were destroyed.

⁵ Then the king of Assyria invaded all the land and came to Samaria, and for three years he besieged it.

The Fall of Israel

⁶ In the ninth year of Hoshea, the king of Assyria ^(A)captured Samaria, ^(B)and he carried the Israelites away to Assyria ^(C)and placed them in Halah, and on the Habor, the river of ^(D)Gozan, and in the cities of ^(E)the Medes.

Exile Because of Idolatry

⁷ And this occurred because the people of Israel had sinned against the Lord their God, ^(F)who had brought them up out of the land of Egypt from under the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt, and had feared other gods ^8 (G)and walked in the customs of the nations whom the Lord drove out before the people of Israel, ^(H)and in the customs that the kings of Israel had practiced. ⁹ And the people of Israel did secretly against the Lord their God things that were not right. They built for themselves high places in all their towns, ^(I)from watchtower to fortified city. ¹⁰ They set up for themselves ^(J)pillars and Asherim on every high hill and under every green tree, ¹¹ and there they made offerings on all the high places, as the nations did whom the Lord carried away before them. And they did wicked things, provoking the Lord to anger,