Today we move ahead a bit further in the history of Israel to 722 BCE. We've been reading about how the Kings of Israel led Israel into sin and how God sent prophets, like Elijah, to call them back to faith. Today the story of the Kingdom of Israel reaches its conclusion (for the moment). Assyria, one of the most powerful empires in the region, conquers Israel, taking the people into exile. Judah remains an independent nation for another hundred and forty years, but eventually they will face a similar fate for similar reasons.
God bless,
Sam
2 Kings 17:1-14
In the twelfth year of King Ahaz of Judah, Hoshea son of Elah began to reign in Samaria over Israel; he reigned nine years. 2He did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, yet not like the kings of Israel who were before him. 3King Shalmaneser of Assyria came up against him; Hoshea became his vassal, and paid him tribute. 4But 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. 5Then the king of Assyria invaded all the land and came to Samaria; for three years he besieged it. 6In 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.
7This 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 8and 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. 9The 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; 10they set up for themselves pillars and sacred poles on every high hill and under every green tree; 11there 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; 12they served idols, of which the Lord had said to them, “You shall not do this.” 13Yet 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.” 14They would not listen but were stubborn, as their ancestors had been, who did not believe in the Lord their God.
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