But the king of Assyria found treachery in Hoshea; for he had sent messengers to King So of Egypt, and offered no tribute to the king of Assyria, as he had done year by year; therefore the king of Assyria confined him and imprisoned him.
Israel Carried Captive to Assyria

Then the king of Assyria invaded all the land and came to Samaria; for three years he besieged it.

In the ninth year of Hoshea the king of Assyria captured Samaria; he carried the Israelites away to Assyria. He placed them in Halah, on the Habor, the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes.

This occurred because the people of Israel had 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. They had worshiped other gods

and walked in the customs of the nations whom the Lord drove out before the people of Israel, and in the customs that the kings of Israel had introduced.

The people of Israel secretly did things that were not right against the Lord their God. They built for themselves high places at all their towns, from watchtower to fortified city;

they set up for themselves pillars and sacred poles on every high hill and under every green tree;

there they made offerings on all the high places, as the nations did whom the Lord carried away before them. They did wicked things, provoking the Lord to anger;

they served idols, of which the Lord had said to them, “You shall not do this.”

Yet the Lord 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 that I commanded your ancestors and that I sent to you by my servants the prophets.”

They would not listen but were stubborn, as their ancestors had been, who did not believe in the Lord their God.

They despised his statutes, and his covenant that he made with their ancestors, and the warnings that he gave them. They went after false idols and became false; they followed the nations that were around them, concerning whom the Lord had commanded them that they should not do as they did.

They rejected all the commandments of the Lord their God and made for themselves cast images of two calves; they made a sacred pole, worshiped all the host of heaven, and served Baal.

They made their sons and their daughters pass through fire; they used divination and augury; and they sold themselves to do evil in the sight of the Lord , provoking him to anger.

Therefore the Lord was very angry with Israel and removed them out of his sight; none was left but the tribe of Judah alone.

Judah also did not keep the commandments of the Lord their God but walked in the customs that Israel had introduced.

The Lord rejected all the descendants of Israel; he punished them and gave them into the hand of plunderers, until he had banished them from his presence.

When he had torn Israel from the house of David, they made Jeroboam son of Nebat king. Jeroboam drove Israel from following the Lord and made them commit great sin.

The people of Israel continued in all the sins that Jeroboam committed; they did not depart from them

until the Lord removed Israel out of his sight, as he had foretold through all his servants the prophets. So Israel was exiled from their own land to Assyria until this day.
Assyria Resettles Samaria

The king of Assyria brought people from Babylon, Cuthah, Avva, Hamath, and Sepharvaim, and placed them in the cities of Samaria in place of the people of Israel; they took possession of Samaria, and settled in its cities.

When they first settled there, they did not worship the Lord ; therefore the Lord sent lions among them, which killed some of them.

So the king of Assyria was told, “The nations that you have carried away and placed in the cities of Samaria do not know the law of the god of the land; therefore he has sent lions among them; they are killing them, because they do not know the law of the god of the land.”

Then the king of Assyria commanded, “Send there one of the priests whom you carried away from there; let him go and live there, and teach them the law of the god of the land.”

So one of the priests whom they had carried away from Samaria came and lived in Bethel; he taught them how they should worship the Lord.

But every nation still made gods of its own and put them in the shrines of the high places that the people of Samaria had made, every nation in the cities in which they lived;

the people of Babylon made Succoth-benoth, the people of Cuth made Nergal, the people of Hamath made Ashima;

the Avvites made Nibhaz and Tartak; the Sepharvites burned their children in the fire to Adrammelech and Anammelech, the gods of Sepharvaim.

They also worshiped the Lord and appointed from among themselves all sorts of people as priests of the high places, who sacrificed for them in the shrines of the high places.

So they worshiped the Lord but also served their own gods, after the manner of the nations from among whom they had been carried away.

To this day they continue to practice their former customs. They do not worship the Lord and they do not follow the statutes or the ordinances or the law or the commandment that the Lord commanded the children of Jacob, whom he named Israel.

The Lord had made a covenant with them and commanded them, “You shall not worship other gods or bow yourselves to them or serve them or sacrifice to them,

but you shall worship the Lord , who brought you out of the land of Egypt with great power and with an outstretched arm; you shall bow yourselves to him, and to him you shall sacrifice.

The statutes and the ordinances and the law and the commandment that he wrote for you, you shall always be careful to observe. You shall not worship other gods;

you shall not forget the covenant that I have made with you. You shall not worship other gods,

but you shall worship the Lord your God; he will deliver you out of the hand of all your enemies.”

They would not listen, however, but they continued to practice their former custom.

So these nations worshiped the Lord , but also served their carved images; to this day their children and their children's children continue to do as their ancestors did.

And in the ninth year of his reign, in the tenth month, on the tenth day of the month, King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon came with all his army against Jerusalem, and laid siege to it; they built siegeworks against it all around.

So the city was besieged until the eleventh year of King Zedekiah.

On the ninth day of the fourth month the famine became so severe in the city that there was no food for the people of the land.

Then a breach was made in the city wall; the king with all the soldiers fled by night by the way of the gate between the two walls, by the king's garden, though the Chaldeans were all around the city. They went in the direction of the Arabah.

But the army of the Chaldeans pursued the king, and overtook him in the plains of Jericho; all his army was scattered, deserting him.

Then they captured the king and brought him up to the king of Babylon at Riblah, who passed sentence on him.

They slaughtered the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes, then put out the eyes of Zedekiah; they bound him in fetters and took him to Babylon.

In the fifth month, on the seventh day of the month—which was the nineteenth year of King Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon—Nebuzaradan, the captain of the bodyguard, a servant of the king of Babylon, came to Jerusalem.

He burned the house of the Lord , the king's house, and all the houses of Jerusalem; every great house he burned down.

All the army of the Chaldeans who were with the captain of the guard broke down the walls around Jerusalem.

Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard carried into exile the rest of the people who were left in the city and the deserters who had defected to the king of Babylon—all the rest of the population.

But the captain of the guard left some of the poorest people of the land to be vinedressers and tillers of the soil.

The bronze pillars that were in the house of the Lord , as well as the stands and the bronze sea that were in the house of the Lord , the Chaldeans broke in pieces, and carried the bronze to Babylon.

They took away the pots, the shovels, the snuffers, the dishes for incense, and all the bronze vessels used in the temple service,

as well as the firepans and the basins. What was made of gold the captain of the guard took away for the gold, and what was made of silver, for the silver.

As for the two pillars, the one sea, and the stands, which Solomon had made for the house of the Lord , the bronze of all these vessels was beyond weighing.

The height of the one pillar was eighteen cubits, and on it was a bronze capital; the height of the capital was three cubits; latticework and pomegranates, all of bronze, were on the capital all around. The second pillar had the same, with the latticework.

The captain of the guard took the chief priest Seraiah, the second priest Zephaniah, and the three guardians of the threshold;

from the city he took an officer who had been in command of the soldiers, and five men of the king's council who were found in the city; the secretary who was the commander of the army who mustered the people of the land; and sixty men of the people of the land who were found in the city.

Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard took them, and brought them to the king of Babylon at Riblah.

The king of Babylon struck them down and put them to death at Riblah in the land of Hamath. So Judah went into exile out of its land.
Gedaliah Made Governor of Judah

He appointed Gedaliah son of Ahikam son of Shaphan as governor over the people who remained in the land of Judah, whom King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon had left.

Now when all the captains of the forces and their men heard that the king of Babylon had appointed Gedaliah as governor, they came with their men to Gedaliah at Mizpah, namely, Ishmael son of Nethaniah, Johanan son of Kareah, Seraiah son of Tanhumeth the Netophathite, and Jaazaniah son of the Maacathite.

Gedaliah swore to them and their men, saying, “Do not be afraid because of the Chaldean officials; live in the land, serve the king of Babylon, and it shall be well with you.”

But in the seventh month, Ishmael son of Nethaniah son of Elishama, of the royal family, came with ten men; they struck down Gedaliah so that he died, along with the Judeans and Chaldeans who were with him at Mizpah.

Then all the people, high and low and the captains of the forces set out and went to Egypt; for they were afraid of the Chaldeans.
Jehoiachin Released from Prison

In the thirty-seventh year of the exile of King Jehoiachin of Judah, in the twelfth month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month, King Evil-merodach of Babylon, in the year that he began to reign, released King Jehoiachin of Judah from prison;

he spoke kindly to him, and gave him a seat above the other seats of the kings who were with him in Babylon.

So Jehoiachin put aside his prison clothes. Every day of his life he dined regularly in the king's presence.

For his allowance, a regular allowance was given him by the king, a portion every day, as long as he lived.