The king of Assyria found conspiracy in Hoshea; for he had sent messengers to So king of Egypt, and offered no tribute to the king of Assyria, as he had done year by year: therefore the king of Assyria shut him up, and bound him in prison.
In the ninth year of Hoshea the king of Assyria took Samaria, and carried Israel away to Assyria, and placed them in Halah, and on the Habor, the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes.
It was so, because the children of Israel had sinned against Yahweh 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,
The children of Israel did secretly things that were not right against Yahweh their God: and they built them high places in all their cities, from the tower of the watchmen to the fortified city;
and there they burnt incense in all the high places, as did the nations whom Yahweh carried away before them; and they worked wicked things to provoke Yahweh to anger;
Yet Yahweh testified to Israel, and to Judah, by every prophet, and every seer, saying, Turn you from your evil ways, and keep my commandments and my statutes, according to all the law which I commanded your fathers, and which I sent to you by my servants the prophets.
They rejected his statutes, and his covenant that he made with their fathers, and his testimonies which he testified to them; and they followed vanity, and became vain, and went after the nations that were round about them, concerning whom Yahweh had charged those who they should not do like them.
They forsook all the commandments of Yahweh their God, and made them molten images, even two calves, and made an Asherah, and worshiped all the host of the sky, and served Baal.
They caused their sons and their daughters to pass through the fire, and used divination and enchantments, and sold themselves to do that which was evil in the sight of Yahweh, to provoke him to anger.
For he tore Israel from the house of David; and they made Jeroboam the son of Nebat king: and Jeroboam drove Israel from following Yahweh, and made them sin a great sin.
until Yahweh removed Israel out of his sight, as he spoke by all his servants the prophets. So Israel was carried away out of their own land to Assyria to this day.
The king of Assyria brought men from Babylon, and from Cuthah, and from Avva, and from Hamath and Sepharvaim, and placed them in the cities of Samaria instead of the children of Israel; and they possessed Samaria, and lived in the cities of it.
Therefore they spoke to the king of Assyria, saying, The nations which you have carried away, and placed in the cities of Samaria, don't know the law of the god of the land: therefore he has sent lions among them, and, behold, they kill them, because they don't know the law of the god of the land.
Then the king of Assyria commanded, saying, Carry there one of the priests whom you brought from there; and let them go and dwell there, and let him teach them the law of the god of the land.
However every nation made gods of their own, and put them in the houses of the high places which the Samaritans had made, every nation in their cities in which they lived.
To this day they do after the former manner: they don't fear Yahweh, neither do they after their statutes, or after their ordinances, or after the law or after the commandment which Yahweh commanded the children of Jacob, whom he named Israel;
with whom Yahweh had made a covenant, and charged them, saying, You shall not fear other gods, nor bow yourselves to them, nor serve them, nor sacrifice to them:
but Yahweh, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt with great power and with an outstretched arm, him shall you fear, and to him shall you bow yourselves, and to him shall you sacrifice:
and the statutes and the ordinances, and the law and the commandment, which he wrote for you, you shall observe to do forevermore; and you shall not fear other gods:
So these nations feared Yahweh, and served their engraved images; their children likewise, and their children's children, as did their fathers, so do they to this day.