1. In the twelfth year of King Ahaz of Judah, Hoshea son of Elah became king in Samaria over Israel, and he reigned nine years.
2. He did what was evil in Adonai’s eyes, yet not as the kings of Israel who were before him.
3. King Shalmaneser of Assyria marched against him, so Hoshea became his vassal and paid him tribute.
4. But the king of Assyria caught Hoshea conspiring—he had sent messengers to King So of Egypt, and had not paid the tribute to the king of Assyria as he had done every year. Therefore the king of Assyria seized him and put him in prison.
5. Then the king of Assyria invaded the entire country, marched up to Samaria, and besieged it for three years.
6. In the ninth year of Hoshea, the king of Assyria captured Samaria and deported the Israelites to Assyria. He placed them in Halah and Habor, on the Gozan River, and in the towns of the Medes.
7. Now it was so because the men of Israel had sinned against Adonai 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. Instead they followed the customs of the nations, whom Adonai had dispossessed before Bnei-Yisrael, yet which the kings of Israel practiced.
9. Bnei-Yisrael secretly did things against Adonai their God that were not right. They built shrines for themselves in all their settlements—from watchtowers to fortified cities,
10. and they set up pillars and Asherah poles for themselves on every high hill and under every leafy tree.
11. There they burned incense on all the high places, like the nations whom Adonai had driven out before them. So they did wicked things to provoke Adonai.
12. They worshipped idols, about which Adonai had said to them, “You shall not do this thing.”