⁵ After this, the king of Assyria invaded the entire land, approached Samaria, and began a three year siege. ⁶ As a result, during the ninth year of the reign of^[a] Hoshea, the king of Assyria captured Samaria and took the Israelis off to Assyria, placing them in Halah, along the Habor River in Gozan, and in cities ruled by the Medes.

The Idolatry of the Northern Kingdom

⁷ This happened because the Israelis had sinned against the Lord their God, who had brought them up from the land of Egypt and from the domination^[b] of Pharaoh, king of Egypt, because^[c] they were fearing other gods, ⁸ and because they were following^[d] the rules of the nations whom the Lord had expelled before the Israelis and that the kings of Israel had practiced.

⁹ The Israelis practiced secret things that were not right, offending the Lord their God. In addition, they built high places for use by all their towns, watchtowers, and fortified cities. ¹⁰ They set up pillars and Asherim on every high hill and in the shade of every green tree, ¹¹ where they made offerings on all the high places, as did the nations whom the Lord had expelled before them. They also practiced other^[e] wickedness, provoking the Lord to become angry, ¹² and they served idols, a practice that the Lord had warned them, “You are not to do this.”

¹³ Nevertheless, the Lord had warned both Israel and Judah by means^[f] of every prophet and seer: “Turn away from your evil practices^[g] and keep my commandments and statutes according to the entire Law that I gave your ancestors and that I sent to you through my servants, the prophets.” ¹⁴ But they would not listen. Instead, they were stubborn,^[h] just like their ancestors had been, who did not believe in the Lord their God. ¹⁵ They rejected the Lord’s^[i] statutes, the covenant that he had made with their ancestors, and his warnings that he gave them. They pursued meaninglessness—and became meaningless themselves—as they followed the lifestyles of the nations that surrounded them, a practice that the Lord had warned them not to do.

¹⁶ They abandoned all of the commands given by^[j] the Lord their God, crafted for themselves cast images of two calves, constructed an Asherah, worshipped all of the stars in heaven, and served Baal. ¹⁷ They passed their sons and daughters through fire, practiced divination, cast spells, and sold themselves to practice what the Lord considered to be evil, thereby^[k] provoking him. ¹⁸ As a result, the Lord was angry with Israel and removed them from his presence. No one was left except for the tribe of Judah.

¹⁹ But Judah, too, did not keep the commands of the Lord their God. Instead, they lived the lifestyle^[l] that Israel had chosen, ²⁰ so the Lord rejected all of the descendants^[m] of Israel, afflicted them, and handed them over to the control of plunderers until he had thrown them away from his presence.^{[n] 21} He ripped them away from the heritage of David, even as the people^[o] appointed Nebat’s son Jeroboam to be king. Jeroboam drove Israel away from following the Lord and made them commit great sin.

²² The Israelis practiced^[p] all the sins that Jeroboam had practiced, and never wavered from them ²³ until the Lord removed Israel from his presence,^[q] just as he had warned through^[r] all of his prophets who served him. So Israel was carried off into exile from their own land into Assyria, where they remain to this day.^[s]