17 ⁵ Then the king of Assyria invaded all the land and came to Samaria, and for three years he besieged it. 17 ⁶ In the ninth year of Hoshea the king of Assyria captured Samaria, and he carried the Israelites away to Assyria, and placed them in Halah, and on the Habor, the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes.

17 ⁷ And this was so, because the people of Israel had sinned against Yahweh their God, who had brought them up out of the land of Egypt from under the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt, and had feared other gods 17 ⁸ and walked in the customs of the nations whom Yahweh drove out before the people of Israel, and in the customs which the kings of Israel had introduced. 17 ⁹ And the people of Israel did secretly against Yahweh their God things that were not right. They built for themselves high places at all their towns, from watchtower to fortified city; 17 ¹⁰ they set up for themselves pillars and Asherim on every high hill and under every green tree; 17 ¹¹ and there they burned incense on all the high places, as the nations did whom Yahweh carried away before them. And they did wicked things, provoking Yahweh to anger, 17 ¹² and they served idols, of which Yahweh had said to them, "You shall not do this." 17 ¹³ Yet Yahweh warned Israel and Judah by every prophet and every seer, saying, "Turn from your evil ways and keep my commandments and my statutes, in accordance with all the law which I commanded your fathers, and which I sent to you by my servants the prophets." 17 ¹⁴ But they would not listen, but were stubborn, as their fathers had been, who did not believe in Yahweh their God. 17 ¹⁵ They despised his statutes, and his covenant that he made with their fathers, and the warnings which he gave them. They went after false idols, and became false, and they followed the nations that were round about them, concerning whom Yahweh had commanded them that they should not do like them. 17 ¹⁶ And they forsook all the commandments of Yahweh their God, and made for themselves molten images of two calves; and they made an Asherah, and worshipped all the host of heaven, and served Baal. 17 ¹⁷ And they burned their sons and their daughters as offerings, and used divination and sorcery, and sold themselves to do evil in the sight of Yahweh, provoking him to anger. 17 ¹⁸ Therefore Yahweh was very angry with Israel, and removed them out of his sight; none was left but the tribe of Judah only.

17 ¹⁹ Judah also did not keep the commandments of Yahweh their God, but walked in the customs which Israel had introduced. 17 ²⁰ And Yahweh rejected all the descendants of Israel, and afflicted them, and gave them into the hand of spoilers, until he had cast them out of his sight.

17 ²¹ When he had torn Israel from the house of David they made Jeroboam the son of Nebat king. And Jeroboam drove Israel from following Yahweh and made them commit great sin. 17 ²² The people of Israel walked in all the sins which Jeroboam did; they did not depart from them, 17 ²³ until Yahweh removed Israel out of his sight, as he had spoken by all his servants the prophets. So Israel was exiled from their own land to Assyria until this day.