1. In the twelfth year of Ahaz king of Judah, Hoshea the son of Elah began to reign in Samaria over Israel for nine years.
2. He did that which was evil in the Lord’s sight, yet not as the kings of Israel who were before him.
3. Shalmaneser king of Assyria came up against him, and Hoshea became his servant, and brought him tribute.
4. The king of Assyria found conspiracy in Hoshea; for he had sent messengers to So king of Egypt, and offered no tribute to the king of Assyria, as he had done year by year. Therefore the king of Assyria seized him, and bound him in prison.
5. Then the king of Assyria came up throughout all the land, 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 to Assyria, and placed them in Halah, and on the Habor, the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes.
7. It was so because the children of Israel had sinned against the Lord their God, who 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. The children of Israel secretly did things that were not right against the Lord their God; and they built high places for themselves in all their cities, from the tower of the watchmen to the fortified city;