CHAPTER 17

¹In the twelfth year of Ahaz king of Judah, Hosea son of Elah became king in Samaria over Israel, for nine years. ²And he did what was evil in the eyes of the LORD though not like the kings of Israel who were before him. ³Against him did Shalmaneser king of Assyria come up, and Hosea became vassal to him and rendered tribute to him. ⁴And the king of Assyria discovered a plot of Hosea’s, that he had sent messengers to So king of Egypt and had not brought up tribute to the king of Assyria as every year, and the king of Assyria seized him and locked him in the prison-house. ⁵And the king of Assyria went up through all the land and went up to Samaria and besieged it for three years. ⁶In the ninth year of Hosea, the king of Assyria took Samaria and exiled Israel to Assyria and settled them in Halah and in Habor by the river of Gozan and in the towns of Media. ⁷And so, because the Israelites had offended the LORD their God Who brought them up from the land of Egypt from under the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt, and they had feared other gods ⁸and had gone by the statutes of the nations whom the LORD had dispossessed before Israel, and that the kings of Israel had made for them, ⁹and the Israelites had done acts that were not right against the LORD their God and had built themselves high places in all their towns from watchtowers to fortress towns. ¹⁰And they had set up for themselves pillars and sacred poles on every high hill and under every lush tree. ¹¹And they had burned incense there on all the high places like all the nations that the LORD had exiled before them, and they did evil things to vex the LORD. ¹²And they had worshipped the foul idols about which the LORD said, “You shall not do this thing.” ¹³And the LORD had made every prophet, every seer, warn Israel, saying, “Turn back from your evil ways and keep My commands and My statutes, according to all the teaching that I charged your fathers, and that I sent to you through My servants the prophets.” ¹⁴But they did not heed, and they stiffened their necks like the necks of their fathers, who did not trust the LORD their God. ¹⁵And they spurned His statutes and His covenant that He had sealed with their fathers, and His precepts that He imparted to them, and they went after empty breath and did empty things, and after the nations that were all round them, of whom the LORD had charged not to do like them. ¹⁶And they forsook the LORD their God and made themselves a molten image of two calves, and they made a sacred pole and bowed down to all the array of the heavens, and they worshipped Baal. ¹⁷And they passed their sons and their daughters through the fire and worked sorcery and divined, and they gave themselves over to do what was evil in the eyes of the LORD to vex him. ¹⁸And the LORD was greatly incensed against Israel, and He removed them from His presence. None remained but the tribe of Judah alone. ¹⁹Judah, too, had not kept the commands of the LORD their God, and they went in the way of the statutes of Israel which they had done. ²⁰And the LORD spurned all the seed of Israel, and He abused them and gave them into the hand of plunderers, until He flung them from His presence. ²¹For He had torn Israel from Judah, and they made Jeroboam son of Nebat king, and he drove Israel away from following the LORD and led them to commit a great offense. ²²And the Israelites went in all the offenses of Jeroboam that he had done, they did not swerve from it, ²³until the LORD had removed Israel from His presence, as He had spoken through His servants the prophets, and He exiled Israel from its land to Assyria, till this day. ²⁴And the king of Assyria brought people from Babel and from Kirthah and from Ivvah and from Hamath and from Sepharvaim and settled them in the towns of Samaria instead of the Israelites, and they took hold of Samaria and settled in its towns. ²⁵And it happened at the beginning of their settling there, that they did not fear the LORD, and the LORD sent lions against them, and they set about killing them. ²⁶And they said to the king of Assyria, saying, “The nations that you exiled and resettled in the towns of Samaria do not know the rules of the god of the land, and he sent lions against them, and here they are killing them, for they do not know the rules of the god of the land.” ²⁷And the king of Assyria charged, saying, “Bring there one of the priests whom you have exiled from there, and let him settle there and teach the rules of the god of the land.” ²⁸And one of the priests whom they had exiled from Samaria came and settled in Bethel, and he set about teaching them how they should fear the LORD. ²⁹And each nation would make its own god and put it in one of the houses on the high places that the Samaritans had made, each nation in the town in which it had settled. ³⁰And the people of Babel made Succoth-Benoth, and the people of Kith made Nergal, and the people of Hamath made Ashima. ³¹And the Avvites made Nibhaz and Tirhak, and the Sepharvites were burning their children in fire to Adrammelech and Anammelech, the gods of Sepharvaim. ³²And they were fearing the LORD, and they made priests for the high places for themselves from their pick, and they would officiate in the houses of the high places. ³³The LORD they would fear but their gods they would serve according to the practice of the nations from which they had been exiled. ³⁴Till this day they do according to their first practices. They do not truly fear the LORD and they do not act according to their statutes and their practice and the teaching and the commands that the LORD charged the sons of Jacob, whose name He set as Israel. ³⁵And the LORD sealed a covenant with them and charged them, saying, “You shall not fear other gods nor shall you bow down to them, nor shall you serve them nor shall you sacrifice to them. ³⁶But the LORD Who brought you up from the land of Egypt with great power and with an outstretched hand, Him shall you fear and to Him shall you bow down and to Him shall you sacrifice. ³⁷And the statutes and the laws and the teaching and the commands that He wrote for you, you shall keep to do always, and you shall not fear other gods. ³⁸And the covenant that I sealed with you, you shall not forget, and you shall not fear other gods. ³⁹But the LORD your God shall you fear, and He will save you from the hand of all your enemies.” ⁴⁰But they did not heed; rather, they went on doing according to their first practice. ⁴¹And these nations would fear the LORD and serve their idols. Their children too, and the children of their children, as their fathers had done, they do till this day.