2 Kings 17:5-23

Modern English Version

Israel Exiled to Assyria

⁵ Then the king of Assyria went throughout all the land, went up to Samaria, and besieged it for three years. ⁶ In the ninth year of Hoshea, the king of Assyria seized Samaria and exiled Israel to Assyria. He put them in Halah, in Habor by the River of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes.

⁷ This happened because the children of Israel had sinned against the Lord their God, who had brought them up from the land of Egypt from under the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt. They had feared other gods ⁸ and walked in the statutes of the nations, whom the Lord dispossessed before the children of Israel, and walked in the statutes which the kings of Israel had made. ⁹ The children of Israel ascribed things to the Lord their God that were not so, and they built for themselves high places in all their cities from the watchtower to the fortified city. ¹⁰ They set up standing stones and Asherah poles on every high hill and under every green tree. ¹¹ There they burned incense on all the high places, as the nations did whom the Lord had carried away before them. And they did wicked things to provoke the Lord to anger, ¹² for they served idols, of which the Lord had said to them, “You shall not do this thing.” ¹³ But the Lord warned Israel and Judah by all the prophets and by 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 neck of their fathers, who did not believe in the Lord their God. ¹⁵ They rejected His statutes and His covenant that He had made with their fathers and the decrees He had given them. They followed idols, and became idolaters, and followed the surrounding nations, concerning whom the Lord commanded them, that they should not do like them.

¹⁶ They forsook all the commandments of the Lord their God, made themselves cast images (two calves), made an Asherah pole, worshipped all the host of heaven, and served Baal. ¹⁷ They caused their sons and daughters to pass through the fire, used divination and omens, and sold themselves to do evil in the sight of the Lord to anger Him.

¹⁸ Therefore the Lord was very angry with Israel and removed them from His presence. None remained except 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 made. ²⁰ The Lord rejected all the seed of Israel, afflicted them, and gave them into the hand of plunderers until He had cast them out of His presence.

²¹ For He had torn Israel from the house of David, and they made Jeroboam the son of Nebat king. Jeroboam diverted Israel from following the Lord and caused them to sin greatly. ²² For the children of Israel walked in all the sins which Jeroboam committed. They did not turn aside from them ²³ until the Lord removed Israel from His presence as He had said by all His servants the prophets. So Israel was exiled from their land to Assyria until this day.