1. In the twelfth year of Ahaz king of Judah, Hoshea son of Elah became king in Samaria over Israel for nine years.
2. He did evil in the sight of the Lord, only not as the kings of Israel who were before him.
3. Shalmaneser king of Assyria came up against him. Hoshea became his servant and gave him gifts.
4. But the king of Assyria found conspiracy in Hoshea, for he had sent messengers to So king of Egypt and offered up no gift to the king of Assyria as he had done year by year. So the king of Assyria detained him, and then put him in prison.
5. Then the king of Assyria went throughout all the land, went up to Samaria, and besieged it for three years.
6. In the ninth year of Hoshea, the king of Assyria seized Samaria and exiled Israel to Assyria. He put them in Halah, in Habor by the River of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes.
7. This happened because the children of Israel had sinned against the Lord their God, who had brought them up from the land of Egypt from under the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt. They had feared other gods
8. and walked in the statutes of the nations, whom the Lord dispossessed before the children of Israel, and walked in the statutes which the kings of Israel had made.