5. Then the king of Assyria came up throughout all the land, and went up to Samaria, and besieged it three years.
6. In the ninth year of Hoshea, the king of Assyria took Samaria, and carried Israel away unto Assyria, and placed them in Halah, and in Habor, on the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes.
7. And it was so, because the children of Israel had sinned against the LORD their God, which 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 nations, whom the LORD cast out from before the children of Israel, and of the kings of Israel, which they made.
9. And the children of Israel did secretly things that were not right against the LORD their God, and they built them high places in all their cities, from the tower of the watchmen to the fenced city.
10. and they set them up pillars and Asherim upon every high hill, and under every green tree:
11. and there they burnt incense in all the high places, as did the nations whom the LORD carried away before them; and wrought wicked things to provoke the LORD to anger:
12. and they served idols, whereof the LORD had said unto them, Ye shall not do this thing.
13. Yet the LORD testified unto Israel, and unto Judah, by the hand of every prophet, and of every seer, saying, Turn ye 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 servants the prophets.