2 Kings 17:1-13 ▼

1 In the twelfth year of Ahaz king of Judah, Hoshea son of Elah became king in Samaria over Israel nine years.

2 And he did evil in the eyes of YHWH, but not as the kings of Israel who were before his face.

3 Shalmaneser king of Assyria came up against him; and Hoshea became to him a vassal and returned to him tribute.

4 And the king of Assyria uncovered in Hoshea a conspiracy, in that he had sent messengers to So king of Egypt, and he did not bring up tribute to the king of Assyria as year by year. And the king of Assyria shut him up and bound him in the house of imprisonment.

5 And the king of Assyria went throughout all the land, and he went up to Samaria and besieged it three years.

6 In the ninth year of Hoshea, the king of Assyria captured Samaria, and he carried away Israel to Assyria and settled them in Halah, and by the Habor River in Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes.

7 And it came to pass that the sons of Israel had sinned against YHWH their God who had brought them up out of the land of Egypt from under the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt. And they had feared other gods,

8 and they had walked in the statutes of the nations whom YHWH had cast out from before the sons of Israel, and of the kings of Israel, which they had made.

9 And the sons of Israel secretly did things that were not right against YHWH their God, and they built for themselves high places in all their cities, from a tower of the watchers to a fortified city.

10 And they set up for themselves pillars and Asherah poles on every high hill and under every green tree.

11 And they burned incense there on all the high places, like the nations whom YHWH had carried away before them, and they did wicked things to provoke YHWH.

12 For they served the idols of which YHWH had said to them, “You? shall not do this thing.”

13 And YHWH testified against Israel and against Judah by all His prophets and every seer, saying, “Turn from your? evil ways and keep My commandments and My statutes, according to all of the Law that I commanded your? fathers, and that I sent to you? by My servants the prophets.”