⁵ Then the Assyrian king invaded the whole country. He marched against Samaria and attacked it for three years. ⁶ In Hoshea’s ninth year, the Assyrian king captured Samaria. He sent Israel into exile to Assyria, resettling them in Halah, in Gozan on the Habor River, and in the cities of the Medes.

The northern kingdom falls

⁷ All this happened because the Israelites sinned against the Lord their God, who brought them up from the land of Egypt, out from under the power of Pharaoh, Egypt’s king. They worshipped other gods. ⁸ They followed the practices of the nations that the Lord had removed before the Israelites, as well as the practices that the Israelite kings had done.^[a]

¹³ The Lord warned Israel and Judah through all the prophets and seers, telling them, Turn from your evil ways. Keep my commandments and my regulations in agreement with the entire Instruction that I commanded your ancestors and sent through my servants the prophets.

¹⁴ But they wouldn’t listen. They were stubborn like their ancestors who didn’t trust the Lord their God. ¹⁵ They rejected his regulations and the covenant he had made with their ancestors, along with the warnings he had given them. They followed worthless images so that they too became worthless. And they imitated the neighboring nations that the Lord had forbidden them to imitate. ¹⁶ They deserted all the commandments of the Lord their God. They made themselves two metal idols cast in the shape of calves and made a sacred pole.^[a] They bowed down to all the heavenly bodies. They served Baal. ¹⁷ They burned their sons and daughters alive. They practiced divination and sought omens. They gave themselves over to doing what was evil in the Lord’s eyes and made him angry.

¹⁸ So the Lord was very angry at Israel. He removed them from his presence. Only the tribe of Judah was spared.

Psalm 60

For the music leader. According to “Lily.” A testimony. A miktam^[a] of David. For instruction, when he went to war with Aram-naharaim and Aram-sobah, and when Joab returned and defeated Edom, killing twelve thousand in the Salt Valley.

Judging

7 “Don’t judge, so that you won’t be judged. ² You’ll receive the same judgment you give. Whatever you deal out will be dealt out to you. ³ Why do you see the splinter that’s in your brother’s or sister’s eye, but don’t notice the log in your own eye? ⁴ How can you say to your brother or sister, ‘Let me take the splinter out of your eye,’ when there’s a log in your eye? ⁵ You deceive yourself! First take the log out of your eye, and then you’ll see clearly to take the splinter out of your brother’s or sister’s eye.