2
And he did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, yet not as the kings of Israel who were before him.
3
1Against him came up
2Shalmaneser king of Assyria. And Hoshea became his vassal and paid him tribute.
4
But the king of Assyria found treachery in Hoshea, for he had sent messengers to So, king of Egypt, and offered no tribute to the king of Assyria, as he had done year by year. Therefore the king of Assyria shut him up and bound him in prison.
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
3captured Samaria,
4and he carried the Israelites away to Assyria
5and placed them in Halah, and on the Habor, the river of
6Gozan, and in the cities of
7the Medes.
Exile Because of Idolatry
7 And this occurred because the people of Israel had sinned against the Lord their God,
8who 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
9and walked in the customs of the nations whom the Lord drove out before the people of Israel,
10and 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,
11from watchtower to fortified city.
10
They set up for themselves
12pillars 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,
13of which the Lord had said to them, “You shall not do this. ”