2 Kings 17:3-10

3Against him came up Shalmaneser king of Assyria, and Hoshea became his servant, and tendered him presents.

4But the king of Assyria found conspiracy in Hoshea; for he had sent messengers to So king of Egypt, and sent up no present to the king of Assyria as [he had done] from year to year. And the king of Assyria shut him up and bound him in prison.

5And the king of Assyria overran the whole land, and went up against Samaria, and besieged it three years.

6In the ninth year of Hoshea, the king of Assyria took Samaria, and carried Israel away into Assyria, and placed them in Halah and by the Habor, the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes.

7And so it was, because the children of Israel had sinned against Jehovah their 1God, who had brought them up out of the land of Egypt from under the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt, and had feared other 2gods;

8and they walked in the statutes of the nations that Jehovah had dispossessed from before the children of Israel, and of the kings of Israel, which they had made.

9And the children of Israel did secretly against Jehovah their 3God things that were not right; and they built them high places in all their cities, from the watchmen's tower to the fortified city.

10And they set them up columns and Asherahs on every high hill and under every green tree;