II Kings 17 Hoshea, King of Israel

 II Kings 17

Hoshea, King of Israel

1 In the twelfth year of Ahaz king of Judah, Hoshea the son of Elah began to reign, and he reigned over Israel in Samaria nine years.

2 And he did evil in the sight of the Lord, but not like the kings of Israel who were before him.

3 Shalmaneser king of Assyria came up against him, and Hoshea became his servant and gave him gifts.

4 But the king of Assyria found a conspiracy in Hoshea, because he had sent messengers to So king of Egypt, and had not paid the king of Assyria gifts year by year, as before. So the king of Assyria shut him up and put him in prison.

5 For the king of Assyria went up throughout the land and came to Samaria and besieged it three years.

6 In the ninth year of Hoshea the king of Assyria took Samaria and carried Israel away to Assyria, and settled them in Halah and Habor by the River Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes. 

7 So it happened because the Israelites sinned against the LORD their God, who had brought them up out of the land of Egypt from under the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt; and they feared other gods. 

8 They followed the statutes of the nations whom the LORD had driven out before the Israelites and of the kings of Israel whom they had made. 

9 The Israelites secretly did things that were not right against the LORD their God, and they built high places in all their cities, from watchtower to fortified city. 

10 They set up sacred images and groves on every high hill and under every green tree. 

11 And they burned incense there in all the high places, like the nations whom the Lord had driven away before them, and they did wicked things to provoke the Lord to anger.

12 And they served the idols of which the Lord had said to them, “You shall not do these things.”

13 And the Lord testified to Israel and Judah by all the prophets and all the seers, saying, “Turn 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.”

14 But they would not listen; they stiffened their necks, like the necks of their fathers, who did not believe in the Lord their God.

15 And they rejected his statutes and his covenant which he had made with their fathers, and his testimonies with which he testified against them; and they followed vanity and became vain, and after the nations that were around them, whom the Lord had commanded them not to do as they had done.

16 They forsook all the commandments of the Lord their God, and made themselves molten images, two calves, and made an idol of the Asherah, and bowed down to all the host of heaven, and served Baal.

17 They also made their sons and their daughters pass through the fire, and used divination and omens, and sold themselves to do evil in the sight of the Lord, to provoke him to anger.

18 Therefore the Lord was very angry with Israel, and removed them out of his sight; none remained but the tribe of Judah. ​​

19 Judah also did not keep the commandments of the Lord their God, but walked in the statutes of Israel, which they had made. 

20 Therefore the Lord rejected all the descendants of Israel and oppressed them and gave them into the hands of plunderers, until he had removed them from his presence.

 21 For he tore Israel from the house of David and made Jeroboam the son of Nebat king. Jeroboam led Israel away from following the Lord and made them sin a great sin.

 22 So the Israelites walked in all the sins that Jeroboam had done; they did not depart from them. 

23 Until the Lord removed Israel from his presence, as he had spoken through all his servants the prophets, so Israel was carried away from their own land to Assyria to this day.