First Reading2 Kings 17:5-8, 13-15a, 18
From the Second Book of Kings
5Then the king of Assyria came up throughout all the land,went up to Samaria,and besieged it three years.6In the ninth year of Hoshea the king of Assyria took Samariaand carried Israel away to Assyria,and placed them in Halah,and on the Habor, the river of Gozan,and in the cities of the Medes.
7It was so because the children of Israel had sinned against the Lord 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,8and walked in the statutes of the nationswhom the Lord cast out from before the children of Israel,and of the kings of Israel, which they made. verses 9–12 are not read13Yet the Lord testified to Israel and to Judah,by every prophet and every seer,saying, “Turn from your evil ways,and keep my commandments and my statutes,according to all the law which I commanded your fathers,and which I sent to you by my servants the prophets.”14Notwithstanding, they would not listen,but hardened their neck like the neck of their fatherswho didn’t believe in the Lord their God.15They rejected his statutes and his covenantthat he made with their fathers,and his testimonies which he testified to them;and they followed vanity,and became vain, and followed the nationsthat were around them,concerning whom the Lord had commanded themthat they should not do like them. verses 16–17 are not read18Therefore the Lord was very angry with Israel,and removed them out of his sight.There was none left but the tribe of Judah only.