5. Then the king of Assyria invaded the whole land, marched up to Samaria, and besieged it for three years.
6. In the ninth year of Hoshea, the king of Assyria captured Samaria. He deported the Israelites to Assyria and settled them in Halah and by the Habor, Gozan’s river, and in the cities of the Medes.
7. This disaster happened because the people of Israel had sinned against the Lord their God who had brought them out of the land of Egypt from the power of Pharaoh king of Egypt and because they had worshiped other gods.
8. They had lived according to the customs of the nations that the Lord had dispossessed before the Israelites and the customs the kings of Israel had introduced.
9. The Israelites secretly did what was not right against the Lord their God. They built high places in all their towns from watchtower to fortified city.