6
In the ninth year of Hosea, the king of Assyria took Samaria and carried Israel away into Assyria and placed them in Halah and in Habor
by the river of Gozan and in the cities of the Medes.
7
For
so it was that the sons of Israel had sinned against the LORD their God, 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
and walked in the statutes of the Gentiles, whom the LORD had cast out from before the sons of Israel, and in the
statutes of the kings of Israel, which they had made.
9
And the sons of Israel had secretly done
those things that
were not right against the LORD their God, building themselves high places in all their cities, from the towers of the watchmen to the fenced cities.
10
And they had set themselves up images and groves in every high hill and under every green tree;
11
and there they burnt incense in all the high places like the Gentiles, whom the LORD had carried away before them, and wrought wicked things to provoke the LORD to anger:
12
serving idols, of which the LORD had said unto them, Ye shall not do this.
13
Yet the LORD testified against Israel and against Judah, by all the prophets
and by all the seers, saying, Turn from your evil ways and keep my commandments
and my statutes, according to all the law which I commanded your fathers and which I sent to you by the hand of my slaves the prophets.
14
Notwithstanding, they would not hear, but hardened their necks, like to the neck of their fathers, who had never believed in the LORD their God.
15
And they rejected his statutes and his covenant that he made with their fathers and his testimonies which he testified against them, and they followed vanity and became vain and went after the Gentiles that
were round about them,
concerning whom the LORD had charged them, that they should not do like them.
16
And they left all the commandments of the LORD their God and made themselves molten images,
even two calves, and made groves and worshipped all the host of heaven and served Baal;