June 25, 2012, Reading

The Second Book of Kings     17: 5-8,  13-15, 18

17:5 And he wandered through the entire land. And ascending to Samaria, he besieged it for three years.
17:6 And in the ninth year of Hoshea, the king of the Assyrians captured Samaria, and he carried away Israel to Assyria. And he stationed them in Halah and in Habor, beside the river of Gozan, in the cities of the Medes.
17:7 For it happened that, when the sons of Israel had sinned against the Lord, their God, who had led them away from the land of Egypt, from the hand of Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, they worshipped strange gods.
17:8 And they walked according to the rituals of the nations that the Lord had consumed in the sight of the sons of Israel, and of the kings of Israel. For they had acted similarly.
17:13 And the Lord testified to them, in Israel and in Judah, through the hand of all the prophets and seers, saying: “Return from your wicked ways, and keep my precepts and ceremonies, in accord with the entire law, which I instructed to your fathers, and just as I sent to you by the hand of my servants, the prophets.”
17:14 But they did not listen. Instead, they hardened their necks to be like the neck of their fathers, who were not willing to obey the Lord, their God.
17:15 And they cast aside his ordinances, and the covenant that he formed with their fathers, and the testimonies which he testified to them. And they pursued vanities and acted vainly. And they followed the nations that were all around them, concerning the things which the Lord had commanded them not to do, and which they did.
17:18 And the Lord became vehemently angry with Israel, and he took them away from his sight. And there remained no one, except the tribe of Judah alone.

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