Then Hazael asked, "Why [is] my lord crying?" He said, "Because I know what evil you will do to the {Israelites}. You will {set their fortifications on fire}, and you will kill their young men with the sword. Their little ones you will dash to pieces, and their pregnant women you will rip open!"

Yahweh gave Israel a savior, and they went out from under the hand of Aram. So the {Israelites} lived in their tents as {formerly}.

He walked in the way of the kings of Israel; he even let his son pass through the fire according to the detestable things of the nations which Yahweh drove out from before the {Israelites}.

Now [this] happened because the {Israelites} had sinned against Yahweh their God when he brought them up from the land of Egypt from under the hand of Pharaoh the king of Egypt and they feared other gods.

They walked in the statutes of the nations whom Yahweh had driven out from before the {Israelites}, which the kings of Israel had introduced.

The {Israelites} secretly did things which [were] not right, against Yahweh their God; they built high places for themselves in all their towns, from the watchtower up to the fortified city.

The {Israelites} walked in all the sins of Jeroboam which he committed, and they did not depart from it,

The king of Assyria brought from Babylonia, from Cush, from Arva, from Hamath, and Sepharvaim, and he settled [them] in the cities of Samaria in place of the {Israelites}, so they took possession of Samaria and lived in her cities.

He removed the high places, and he smashed the stone pillars; he cut down the poles of Asherah worship and demolished the bronze serpent which Moses had made, for up to those days the {Israelites} were offering incense to it and called it Nehushtan.

He did evil in the eyes of Yahweh, according to the detestable things of the nations that Yahweh had driven out from the presence of the {Israelites}.

But Manasseh did not listen and tempted them to do evil more than the nations that Yahweh destroyed before the presence of the {Israelites}.