2 Kings 17:5-7

Contemporary English Version

Samaria Is Destroyed and the Israelites Are Taken to Assyria

⁵ Shalmaneser invaded Israel and attacked the city of Samaria for three years, ⁶ before capturing it in the ninth year of Hoshea's rule. The Assyrian king^[a] took the Israelites away to Assyria as prisoners. He forced some of them to live in the town of Halah, others to live near the Habor River in the territory of Gozan, and still others to live in towns where the Median people lived.

⁷ All of this happened because the people of Israel had sinned against the Lord their God, who had rescued them from Egypt, where they had been slaves. They worshiped foreign gods,