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16.15 great altar offer the morning burnt-offering, and the evening meal-offering, and the king's burnt-offering, and his meal-offering, with the burnt-offering of all the people of the land, and their meal-offering, and their drink-offerings; and dash against it all the blood of the burnt-offering, and all the blood of the sacrifice; but the brazen altar shall be for me to look to.' Thus did Urijah the priest, according to all that king Ahaz commanded.

And king Ahaz cut off the borders of the bases, and removed the laver from off them; and took down the sea from off the brazen oxen that were under it, and put it upon a pavement of stone. And the covered place for the sabbath that they had built in the house, and the king's entry without, turned he unto the house of the, because of the king of Assyria. Now the rest of the acts of Ahaz which he did, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah? And Ahaz slept with his fathers, and was buried with his fathers in the city of David; and Hezekiah his son reigned in his stead.

In the twelfth year of Ahaz king of Judah began Hoshea the son of Elah to reign in Samaria over Israel, and reigned nine years. And he did that which was evil in the sight of the, yet not as the kings of Israel that were before him. Against him came up Shalmaneser king of Assyria; and Hoshea became his servant, and brought him presents. And the king of Assyria found conspiracy in Hoshea; for he had sent messengers to So king of Egypt, and offered no present to the king of Assyria, as he had done year by year; therefore the king of Assyria shut him up, and bound him in prison. Then the king of Assyria came up throughout all the land, and went up to Samaria, and besieged it three years. In the ninth year of Hoshea, the king of Assyria took Samaria, and carried Israel away unto Assyria, and placed them in Halah, and in Habor, on the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes.

And it was so, because the children of Israel had sinned against the 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, and walked in the statutes of the nations, whom the  cast out from before the children of Israel, and of the kings of Israel, which they practised; and the children of Israel did impute things that were not right unto the  their God, and they built them high places in all their cities, from the tower of the watchmen to the fortified city; and they set them up pillars and Asherim upon every high hill, and under every leafy tree; and there they offered in all the high places, as did the nations whom the  carried away before them; and wrought wicked things to provoke the ; and they served idols, whereof the  had said unto them: 'Ye shall not do this thing'; yet the  forewarned Israel, and Judah, by the hand of every prophet, and of every seer, saying: 'Turn ye 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 the hand of My servants the prophets'; notwithstanding they would not hear, but hardened their neck, like to the neck of their fathers, who believed not in the  their God; and they rejected His statutes, and His covenant that He made with their fathers, and His testimonies