2 Kings 17:5-12

5Then the king of Assyria invaded the entire country, marched up to Samaria, and besieged it for three years.

6In the ninth year of Hoshea, the king of Assyria captured Samaria and deported the Israelites to Assyria. He placed them in Halah and Habor, on the Gozan River, and in the towns of the Medes.

7Now it was so because the men of Israel had sinned against Adonai their God, who brought them up out of the land of Egypt, from under the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt, and had feared other gods.

8Instead they followed the customs of the nations, whom Adonai had dispossessed before Bnei-Yisrael, yet which the kings of Israel practiced.

9Bnei-Yisrael secretly did things against Adonai their God that were not right. They built shrines for themselves in all their settlements—from watchtowers to fortified cities,

10and they set up pillars and Asherah poles for themselves on every high hill and under every leafy tree.

11There they burned incense on all the high places, like the nations whom Adonai had driven out before them. So they did wicked things to provoke Adonai.

12They worshipped idols, about which Adonai had said to them, “You shall not do this thing.”