The king of Assyria invaded the whole country and, coming to Samaria, laid siege to it for three years. In the ninth year of Hoshea, the king of Assyria captured Samaria and deported the Israelites to Assyria. He settled them in Halah on the Habor, a river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes.

This happened because the Israelites had sinned against the Lord their God who had brought them out of the land of Egypt, out of the grip of Pharaoh king of Egypt. They worshipped other gods, they followed the practices of the nations that the Lord had dispossessed for them.

And yet through all the prophets and all the seers, the Lord had given Israel and Judah this warning, ‘Turn from your wicked ways and keep my commandments and my laws in accordance with the entire Law I laid down for your fathers and delivered to them through my servants the prophets.’ But they would not listen, they were more stubborn than their ancestors had been who had no faith in the Lord their God. They despised his laws and the covenant he had made with their ancestors, and the warnings he had given them. They pursued emptiness, and themselves became empty through copying the nations round them although the Lord had ordered them not to act as they did. For this, the Lord was enraged with Israel and thrust them away from him. There was none left but the tribe of Judah only.

Hear us, O Lord, and help us.

O God, you have rejected us and broken us.
  You have been angry; come back to us.

Hear us, O Lord, and help us.

You have made the earth quake, torn it open.
  Repair what is shattered for it sways.
You have inflicted hardships on your people
  and made us drink a wine that dazed us.

Hear us, O Lord, and help us.

Will you utterly reject us, O God,
  and no longer march with our armies?
Give us help against the foe:
  for the help of man is vain.

Hear us, O Lord, and help us.

Alleluia, alleluia!
Your word is truth, O Lord:
consecrate us in the truth.
Alleluia!