6. In the ninth year of Hoshea, the king of Assyria captured Samaria. He deported the Israelites to Assyria and settled them in Halah and by the Habor, Gozan’s river, and in the cities of the Medes.
7. This disaster happened because the people of Israel had sinned against the Lord their God who had brought them out of the land of Egypt from the power of Pharaoh king of Egypt and because they had worshiped other gods.
8. They had lived according to the customs of the nations that the Lord had dispossessed before the Israelites and the customs the kings of Israel had introduced.
9. The Israelites secretly did what was not right against the Lord their God. They built high places in all their towns from watchtower to fortified city.
10. They set up for themselves 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 those nations that the Lord had driven out before them. They did evil things, provoking the Lord.
12. They served idols, although the Lord had told them, “You must not do this.”