An Oracle Concerning Damascus

17 An ^(A)oracle concerning ^(B)Damascus.

¹⁵ And he divided his forces against them by night, he and his servants, and defeated them and pursued them to Hobah, north of Damascus.

⁶ She conceived again and bore a daughter. And the Lord said to him, ^(A)“Call her name No Mercy,^[a] for ^(B)I will no more have mercy on the house of Israel, to forgive them at all. ⁷ But ^(C)I will have mercy on the house of Judah, and I will save them by the Lord their God. I ^(D)will not save them by bow or by sword or by war or by horses or by horsemen.”

⁸ When she had weaned No Mercy, she conceived and bore a son. ⁹ And the Lord said, ^(E)“Call his name Not My People,^[b] for ^(F)you are not my people, and I am not your God.”^[c]

^10 [d] Yet ^(G)the number of the children of Israel shall be ^(H)like the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured or numbered. ^(I)And ^(J)in the place where it was said to them, ^(K)“You are not my people,” it shall be said to them, ^(L)“Children^[e] of ^(M)the living God.”

^4 (A)for before the boy knows how to cry ‘My father’ or ‘My mother,’ the ^(B)wealth of ^(C)Damascus and the spoil of ^(D)Samaria will be carried away before the king of Assyria.”

² they approached Zerubbabel and the heads of fathers' houses and said to them, “Let us build with you, for we worship your God as you do, and we have been sacrificing to him ever ^(A)since the days of ^(B)Esarhaddon king of Assyria ^(C)who brought us here.”

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, ¹² and they served idols, ^(K)of which the Lord had said to them, “You shall not do this.” ¹³ Yet the Lord ^(L)warned Israel and Judah ^(M)by every prophet ^(N)and every seer, saying, ^(O)“Turn from your evil ways and keep my commandments and my statutes, in accordance with all the Law that I commanded your fathers, and that I sent to you by my servants the prophets.”

¹⁴ But they would not listen, ^(P)but were stubborn, as their fathers had been, who did not believe in the Lord their God. ¹⁵ They despised his statutes ^(Q)and his covenant that he made with their fathers and the warnings that he gave them. They went after ^(R)false idols ^(S)and became false, and they followed the nations that were around them, concerning whom the ^(T)Lord had commanded them that they should not do like them. ¹⁶ And they abandoned all the commandments of the Lord their God, and made for themselves metal images of ^(U)two calves; and they ^(V)made an Asherah and ^(W)worshiped all the host of heaven and served ^(X)Baal. ^17 (Y)And they burned their sons and their daughters as offerings^[a] and used ^(Z)divination and ^(AA)omens and ^(AB)sold themselves to do evil in the sight of the Lord, provoking him to anger. ¹⁸ Therefore the Lord was very angry with Israel and removed them out of his sight. None was left but ^(AC)the tribe of Judah only.

^19 (AD)Judah also did not keep the commandments of the Lord their God, but walked in the customs that Israel had introduced. ²⁰ And the Lord rejected all the descendants of Israel and afflicted them ^(AE)and gave them into the hand of plunderers, until he had cast them out of his sight.

^21 (AF)When he had torn Israel from the house of David, ^(AG)they made Jeroboam the son of Nebat king. And Jeroboam drove Israel from following the Lord ^(AH)and made them commit great sin. ²² The people of Israel walked in all the sins that Jeroboam did. They did not depart from them, ²³ until the Lord removed Israel out of his sight, ^(AI)as he had spoken by all his servants the prophets. ^(AJ)So Israel was exiled from their own land to Assyria until this day.

⁶ Then David put garrisons in Aram of Damascus, and the Syrians ^(A)became servants to David and brought tribute. ^(B)And the Lord gave victory to David wherever he went.