3. Shalmaneser, the king of the Assyrians, ascended against him. And Hoshea became a servant to him, and he paid him tribute.
4. And when the king of the Assyrians discovered that Hoshea, striving to rebel, had sent messengers to Sais, to the king of Egypt, so as not to present the tribute to the king of the Assyrians, as he had been accustomed to do each year, he besieged him. And having been bound, he cast him into prison.
5. And he wandered through the entire land. And ascending to Samaria, he besieged it for three years.
6. And in the ninth year of Hoshea, the king of the Assyrians captured Samaria, and he carried away Israel to Assyria. And he stationed them in Halah and in Habor, beside the river of Gozan, in the cities of the Medes.
7. For it happened that, when the sons of Israel had sinned against the Lord, their God, who had led them away from the land of Egypt, from the hand of Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, they worshipped strange gods.
8. And they walked according to the rituals of the nations that the Lord had consumed in the sight of the sons of Israel, and of the kings of Israel. For they had acted similarly.
9. And the sons of Israel offended the Lord, their God, with deeds that were not upright. And they built for themselves high places in all their cities, from the tower of the watchmen to the fortified city.
10. And they made for themselves statues and sacred groves, on every high hill and under every leafy tree.
11. And they were burning incense there, upon altars, in the manner of the nations that the Lord had removed from their face. And they did wicked deeds, provoking the Lord.
12. And they worshipped impurities, concerning which the Lord instructed them that they should not do this word.
13. And the Lord testified to them, in Israel and in Judah, through the hand of all the prophets and seers, saying: "Return from your wicked ways, and keep my precepts and ceremonies, in accord with the entire law, which I instructed to your fathers, and just as I sent to you by the hand of my servants, the prophets."