40. These are the ten tribes of Israel who were taken away into captivity in the time of King Hoshea. King Shalmaneser of Assyria captured them and deported them to a foreign land east of the River Euphrates.
41. But the ten tribes decided not to stay in that land among the many Gentiles, so they moved farther east to a country where no human beings had ever lived before.
42. There they hoped to keep their laws, which they had failed to keep in their own country.
43. When they had to make the difficult passage across the Euphrates,