2 Kings 17:6-18 In the ninth year of Hoshea, the king of Assyria captured Samaria. He led the Israelites away to Assyria. He stationed them in Halah and Habor on the Gozan River, and in the towns of the Medes.

VIN⁽ⁱ⁾ ⁶ In the ninth year of Hoshea, the king of Assyria captured Samaria. He led the Israelites away to Assyria. He stationed them in Halah and Habor on the Gozan River, and in the towns of the Medes. ⁷ Now this happened because the Israelites had sinned against the LORD their God when he brought them up from the land of Egypt from under the hand of Pharaoh the king of Egypt and they feared other gods. ⁸ They walked in the statutes of the nations whom the LORD had driven out from before the Israelites, which the kings of Israel had introduced. ⁹ The Israelites secretly did things which were not right, against the LORD their God; they built high places for themselves in all their towns, from the watchtower up to the fortified city. ¹⁰ and they set up for themselves pillars and Asherah poles on every high hill, and under every green tree; ¹¹ and there they burned incense in all the high places, as the nations whom the LORD carried away before them did; and they did wicked things to provoke the LORD to anger; ¹² They served idols which the LORD had said to them, "You shall not do this thing!" ¹³ Nevertheless, the LORD had warned both Israel and Judah by means of every prophet and seer: "Turn away from your evil practices and keep my commandments and statutes according to the entire law that I gave your ancestors and that I sent to you through my servants, the prophets." ¹⁴ And they did not give ear, but became stiff-necked, like their fathers who had no faith in the Lord their God. ¹⁵ They rejected the LORD's statutes, the covenant that he had made with their ancestors, and his warnings that he gave them. They pursued meaninglessness {— } and became meaningless themselves {— } as they followed the lifestyles of the nations that surrounded them, a practice that the LORD had warned them not to do. ¹⁶ They abandoned all the commands of the LORD their God and made for themselves two molten calf-shaped idols; they made a pole of Asherah worship and bowed down to the army of the heavens and served Baal. ¹⁷ They made their sons and their daughters pass through the fire, they practiced divination and read omens, and they sold themselves to do evil in the eyes of the LORD to provoke him. ¹⁸ the LORD was very angry with Israel. He removed them from his sight. Only the tribe of Judah kept its place.