5. The king of Assyria marched through the whole land. He attacked Samaria and besieged it for three years.
6. In the ninth year of Hoshea’s reign, the king of Assyria captured Samaria and deported the people of Israel to Assyria. He settled them in Halah, along the Habor (the river of Gozan), and in the cities of the Medes.
7. This happened because the Israelites sinned against the Lord their God, who brought them up from the land of Egypt and freed them from the power of Pharaoh king of Egypt. They worshiped other gods;
8. they observed the practices of the nations whom the Lord had driven out from before Israel, and followed the example of the kings of Israel.
9. The Israelites said things about the Lord their God that were not right. They built high places in all their cities, from the watchtower to the fortress.
10. They set up sacred pillars and Asherah poles on every high hill and under every green tree.
11. They burned incense on all the high places just like the nations whom the Lord had driven away from before them. Their evil practices made the Lord angry.
12. They worshiped the disgusting idols in blatant disregard of the Lord’s command.
13. The Lord solemnly warned Israel and Judah through all his prophets and all the seers, “Turn back from your evil ways; obey my commandments and rules that are recorded in the law. I ordered your ancestors to keep this law and sent my servants the prophets to remind you of its demands.”
14. But they did not pay attention and were as stubborn as their ancestors, who had not trusted the Lord their God.
15. They rejected his rules, the covenant he had made with their ancestors, and the laws he had commanded them to obey. They paid allegiance to worthless idols, and so became worthless to the Lord. They copied the practices of the surrounding nations in blatant disregard of the Lord’s command.