6. He defeated Samaria in the ninth year Hoshea was king, and he took the Israelites away to Assyria. He settled them in Halah, in Gozan on the Habor River, and in the cities of the Medes.
7. All these things happened because the Israelites had sinned against the Lord their God. He had brought them out of Egypt and had rescued them from the power of the king of Egypt, but the Israelites had honored other gods.
8. They lived like the nations the Lord had forced out of the land ahead of them. They lived as their evil kings had shown them,
9. secretly sinning against the Lord their God. They built places to worship gods in all their cities, from the watchtower to the strong, walled city.
10. They put up stone pillars to gods and Asherah idols on every high hill and under every green tree.