1. In the twelfth year of Ahaz the king of Judah, Hoshea the son of Elah began to reign over Israel in Samaria, reigning nine years.
2. He did evil in the eyes of Yahweh, only not as the kings of Israel who were before him.
3. Shalmaneser the king of Assyria came up against him, and Hoshea became his vassal and paid tribute to him.
4. But the king of Assyria found treachery in Hoshea, for he had sent messengers to So king of Egypt, and he did not offer tribute to the king of Assyria as he had year after year; so the king of Assyria arrested him, and confined him in a house of imprisonment.
5. So the king of Assyria went up in all the land, then he went up to Samaria and besieged it for three years.
6. In the ninth year of Hoshea, the king of Assyria captured Samaria and deported Israel to Assyria. He placed them in Halah, in Habor, in the river regions of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes.
7. Now this happened because the Israelites had sinned against Yahweh their God when he brought them up from the land of Egypt from under the hand of Pharaoh the king of Egypt and they feared other gods.
8. They walked in the statutes of the nations whom Yahweh had driven out from before the Israelites, which the kings of Israel had introduced.
9. The Israelites secretly did things which were not right, against Yahweh their God; they built high places for themselves in all their towns, from the watchtower up to the fortified city.
10. They set up for themselves stone pillars and poles of Asherah worship on every high hill and under every green tree.
11. They burned incense there on all the high places, like the nations which Yahweh deported before them, and they did evil things to provoke Yahweh.