2 Kings 17:1-13 ▼

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

2 And he did what was evil in the sight of Yahweh, only not as the kings of Israel who were before him.

3 Shalmaneser king of Assyria went up against him, and Hoshea became his servant and paid him tribute.

4 But the king of Assyria found conspiracy in Hoshea, who had sent messengers to So king of Egypt and had 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 went up against the whole 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 took Israel away into exile to Assyria, and settled them in Halah and Habor, on the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes.

7 Now this happened because the sons of Israel had sinned against Yahweh their God—who had brought them up from the land of Egypt from under the hand of Pharaoh, king of Egypt—and they had feared other gods

8 and walked in the statutes of the nations whom Yahweh had dispossessed 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 did things secretly which were not right against Yahweh their God. Moreover, they built for themselves high places in all their cities, from watchtower to fortified city.

10 And they set for themselves sacred pillars and Asherim on every high hill and under every green tree,

11 and there they burned incense on all the high places as the nations did which Yahweh had taken away into exile before them; and they did evil things provoking Yahweh to anger.

12 And they served idols, concerning which Yahweh had said to them, “You shall not do this thing.”

13 Yet Yahweh warned Israel and Judah by the hand of all His prophets and every seer, saying, “Turn from your evil ways and keep My commandments, 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.”