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.