32 Bible Verses about Exile, in assyria

Because you did not obey the voice of the Lord your God, you who were as numerous as the stars of heaven shall be left few in number. It shall come about that just as the Lord delighted over you to make you prosper and multiply, so the Lord will delight over you to bring you to ruin and destruction; and you will be uprooted [violently] from the land which you are entering to possess. And the Lord will scatter you among all the nations, from one end of the earth to the other; and there you will [be forced to] serve other gods, [lifeless gods of] wood and stone, which neither you nor your fathers have known. read more.
Among those nations you will find no peace (rest), and there will be no resting place for the sole of your foot; but there the Lord will give you a trembling heart, failing eyes, and a despairing soul. Your life will hang in doubt before you; night and day you will be filled with anxiety and have no assurance of living.

They have lyre and harp, tambourine and flute, and wine at their feasts;
But they do not regard nor even pay attention to the deeds of the Lord,
Nor do they consider the work of His hands.
Therefore My people go into exile because they lack knowledge [of God];
And their honorable men are famished,
And their common people are parched with thirst.

‘Yet if in spite of this you will not [attentively] listen to Me but act with hostility against me, then I will act with hostility against you in wrath, and I also will punish you seven times for your sins.

“The Lord will bring a nation against you from far away, from the end of the earth, [as swift] as the eagle swoops down [to attack], a nation whose language you will not understand, a defiant nation who will have no respect for the old, nor show favor to the young, and it will eat the offspring of your herd and the produce of your ground until you are destroyed, who will leave you no grain, new wine, or oil, nor the offspring of your herd or the young of your flock until they have caused you to perish. read more.
They will besiege you in all your cities until your high and fortified walls in which you trusted come down throughout your land; and they will besiege you in all your cities throughout your land which the Lord your God has given you. Then you will eat the offspring of your own body [to avoid starvation], the flesh of your sons and daughters whom the Lord your God has given you, during the siege and the misery by which your enemy will oppress you. The man who is most refined and well-bred among you will be cruel and hostile toward his brother and toward the wife he cherishes and toward the rest of his children who remain, so that he will not give even one of them any of the flesh of his children which he will eat, because he has nothing else left, during the siege and the misery by which your enemy will oppress you in all your cities. The most refined and well-bred woman among you, who would not venture to set the sole of her foot on the ground because she is so delicate and pampered, will be cruel and hostile toward the husband she cherishes and toward her son and daughter, and toward her afterbirth that comes from between her legs and toward the children whom she bears; for she will eat them secretly for lack of anything else, during the siege and the misery by which your enemy will oppress you in your cities.

Woe to Assyria, the rod of My anger [against Israel],
The staff in whose hand is My indignation and fury [against Israel’s disobedience]!

I send Assyria against a godless nation
And commission it against the people of My wrath
To take the spoil and to seize the plunder,
And to trample them down like mud in the streets.

Set the trumpet to your lips [announcing impending judgment]!
Like a [great] vulture the enemy comes against the house of the Lord,
Because they have broken My covenant
And transgressed and rebelled against My law.

Then they will cry out to Me,
“My God, we of Israel know You!”

Israel has rejected the good;
The enemy shall pursue him.
read more.

They set up kings, but not from Me [therefore without My blessing];
They have appointed princes, but I did not know it.
With their silver and their gold they made idols for themselves,
That they might be cut off.

He has rejected your [pagan] calf, O Samaria, saying,
“My wrath burns against them.”
How long will they be incapable of innocence?

For even this [loathsome calf] is from Israel.
A craftsman made it, so it is not God;
Surely the calf of Samaria will be broken to pieces and go up in flames.

For they sow the wind [in evil]
And they reap the whirlwind [in disaster].
The standing grain has no growth;
It yields no grain.
If it were to yield, strangers would swallow it up.
Israel is [as if] swallowed up [by enemies];
They are now among the nations
Like a vessel [of cheap, coarse pottery] that is useless.

Samaria will be found guilty [and become desolate],
Because she rebelled against her God;
They will fall by the sword,
Their infants will be dashed in pieces,
And their pregnant women will be ripped open.

“I have known [chosen, cared for, and loved] only you of all the families of the earth;
Therefore I shall punish you for all your wickedness.”

Therefore, I will send you to go into exile far beyond Damascus,” says the Lord, whose name is the God of hosts.

“And though they go into captivity before their enemies,
From there I shall command the sword to kill them,
And I will set My eyes against them for evil (judgment, punishment) and not for good [that is, not for correction leading to restoration].”

Therefore I [the Lord] shall make Samaria a heap of ruins [and of stones and arable land] in the open country,
A place for planting vineyards;
And I will pour her stones down into the ravine
And lay bare her foundations.

All her idols shall be broken in pieces,
All her earnings [from her idolatry] shall be burned with fire,
And all her images I shall make desolate;
For from the earnings of a prostitute she collected them,
And to the earnings of a prostitute they shall return.

for before the boy knows how to say, ‘My father’ or ‘My mother,’ the riches of Damascus (Aram’s capital) and the spoil of Samaria (Israel’s capital) will be carried away by the king of Assyria.” Again the Lord spoke to me, saying,
“Because these people (Judah) have refused the gently flowing waters of Shiloah
And rejoice in Rezin [the king of Aram] and Remaliah’s son [Pekah the king of Israel],
read more.

Now therefore, listen carefully, the Lord is about to bring on them the waters of the [Euphrates] River, strong and abundant—
The king of Assyria and all his glory;
And it will rise over all its channels and canals and go far beyond its banks.

For they have gone up to Assyria,
Like a wild donkey wandering alone and taking her own way;
Ephraim has hired lovers (pagan allies).

Yes, even though [with presents] they hire allies among the nations,
Now I will gather them up;
And [in a little while] they will begin to grow weak and diminish
Because of the burden imposed by the king of princes [the king of Assyria].

From you [O Nineveh],
One has gone forth who plotted evil against the Lord,
A malevolent counselor [the king of Assyria]. This is what the Lord says,

“Though they are at full strength and many in number,
Even so, they will be cut off and pass away.
Though I have afflicted you and caused you grief [O Jerusalem],
I will afflict you no longer.

“Now, I will break his yoke [of taxation] off you,
And I will tear off your shackles.”

“When they sin against You (for there is no man who does not sin) and You are angry with them and hand them over to the enemy, so that they are carried away captive to the enemy’s land, [whether] far away or near; if they take it to heart in the land where they have been taken captive, and they repent and pray to You in the land of their captors, saying, ‘We have sinned and done wrong and we have acted wickedly;’ if they return to You with all their heart and with all their soul in the land of their enemies who have taken them captive, and they pray to You toward their land [of Israel] which You gave to their fathers, the city [of Jerusalem] which You have chosen, and the house which I have built for Your Name and Presence; read more.
then hear their prayer and their supplication in heaven Your dwelling place, and maintain their right and defend their cause, and forgive Your people who have sinned against You and all the transgressions which they have committed against You, and make them objects of compassion before their captors, that they will be merciful to them

Pul, [Tiglath-pileser III] king of Assyria, came against the land [of Israel], and Menahem gave Pul a thousand talents of silver [as a bribe], so that he might help him to strengthen his control of the kingdom. Menahem exacted the money from Israel, from all the wealthy, influential men, fifty shekels of silver from each man to give to the king of Assyria. So the king of Assyria turned back and did not stay there in the land.

In the days of Pekah king of Israel, Tiglath-pileser king of Assyria came and took Ijon, Abel-beth-maacah, Janoah, Kedesh, Hazor, Gilead, and Galilee, all the land of [the tribe of] Naphtali, and he carried the people captive to Assyria.

So the God of Israel stirred up the spirit of Pul, king of Assyria, [that is,] the spirit of Tilgath-pilneser king of Assyria, and he carried them away into exile—the Reubenites, the Gadites, and the half-tribe of Manasseh—and brought them to Halah, Habor, Hara, and the river Gozan, [where they remain] to this day.

Shalmaneser [V] king of Assyria came up against him, and Hoshea became his servant and paid him tribute (money). But the king of Assyria discovered a conspiracy in Hoshea, who sent messengers to So, king of Egypt, and offered no tribute to the king of Assyria, as he had done year by year; therefore the king of Assyria arrested him and bound him in prison. Then the king of Assyria invaded all the land [of Israel] and went up to Samaria and besieged it for three years.read more.
In the ninth year of Hoshea, the king of Assyria took Samaria and carried [the people of] Israel into exile to Assyria, and settled them in Halah and in Habor, by the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes.

Then the king of Assyria invaded all the land [of Israel] and went up to Samaria and besieged it for three years. In the ninth year of Hoshea, the king of Assyria took Samaria and carried [the people of] Israel into exile to Assyria, and settled them in Halah and in Habor, by the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes. Now this came about because the Israelites had sinned against the Lord their God, who had brought them up from the land of Egypt, from under the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt; and they had feared [and worshiped] other gods

until the Lord removed Israel from His sight, just as He had foretold through all His servants the prophets. So Israel went into exile from their own land to Assyria to this day [the date of this writing].

The king of Assyria brought men from Babylon and from Cuthah and from Avva and from Hamath and Sepharvaim, and settled them in the cities of Samaria in place of the sons (people) of Israel. They took possession of Samaria and lived in its cities.

For the Lord hears the needy
And does not despise His who are prisoners.

‘If they confess their wickedness and the wickedness of their forefathers, in their unfaithfulness which they have committed against Me—and also in their acting with hostility toward Me— I also was acting with hostility toward them and brought them into the land of their enemies—then if their uncircumcised (sin-filled) hearts are humbled and they accept the punishment for their wickedness, then I will remember My covenant with Jacob, and also My covenant with Isaac, and also My covenant with Abraham, and remember the land. read more.
But the land will be abandoned by them and will enjoy its Sabbaths while it lies desolate without them; and they will accept the punishment for their wickedness and make amends because they rejected My ordinances and their soul rejected My statutes. Yet in spite of this, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not reject them, nor will I so despise them as to destroy them, breaking My covenant with them; for I am the Lord their God. But I will, for their sake, [earnestly] remember the covenant with their forefathers, whom I have brought out of the land of Egypt in the sight of the nations, that I might be their God. I am the Lord.’” These are the statutes, ordinances, and laws which the Lord established between Himself and the Israelites through Moses at Mount Sinai.

Woe to Assyria, the rod of My anger [against Israel],
The staff in whose hand is My indignation and fury [against Israel’s disobedience]!

So when the Lord has completed all His work [of judgment] on Mount Zion and on Jerusalem, He will say, “I will punish the fruit [the thoughts, the declarations, and the actions] of the arrogant heart of the king of Assyria and the haughtiness of his pride.”

Your shepherds are asleep, O king of Assyria;
Your nobles are lying down [in death].
Your people are scattered on the mountains
And there is no one to gather them.

There is no relief and healing for your hurt;
Your wound is incurable.
All who hear the news about you
Clap their hands over [what has happened to] you.
For on whom has your [unceasing] evil not come continually?

The Lord has given a command concerning you [O king of Nineveh]:
“Your name will no longer be perpetuated.
I will cut off the carved idols and cast images
From the temple of your gods;
I will prepare your grave,
For you are vile and unworthy.”

The one who scatters has come up against you [Nineveh].
Man the fortress and ramparts, watch the road;
Strengthen your back [prepare for battle], summon all your strength.

For the Lord will restore the splendor and majesty of Jacob
Like the splendor of [ancient and united] Israel,
Even though destroyers have destroyed them
And ruined their vine branches.

Woe (judgment is coming) to the city of blood [guilty of murder and mayhem], completely full of lies and pillage;
Her prey never departs [alive].

The noise of the [cracking of the] whip,
The noise of the rattling of the wheel,
Galloping horses
And rumbling and bounding chariots [in the assault of Nineveh]!

Horsemen charging,
Swords flashing, spears gleaming,
Many slain, a mass of corpses,
No end of corpses—
The horsemen stumble over the corpses!
read more.

All because of the many acts of prostitution of [Nineveh] the prostitute,
The charming and well-favored one, the mistress of sorceries,
Who betrays nations by her acts of prostitution (idolatry)
And families by her sorceries.

“Behold, I am against you,” declares the Lord of hosts,
“And I will lift up your skirts over your face,
And I will let the nations look at your nakedness [O Nineveh]
And the kingdoms at your disgrace.

Yet the number of the sons of Israel
Shall be like the sand of the sea,
Which cannot be measured or numbered;
And in the place
Where it is said to them,
“You are not My people,”
It will be said to them,
“You are the sons of the living God.”

Then the sons of Judah and the sons of Israel shall be gathered together,
And they will appoint for themselves one leader,
And they will go up from the land,
For great and glorious will be the day of Jezreel.

“Also I shall bring back the exiles of My people Israel,
And they will rebuild the deserted and ruined cities and inhabit them:
They will also plant vineyards and drink their wine,
And make gardens and eat their fruit.

“I will also plant them on their land,
And they shall never again be uprooted from their land
Which I have given them,”
Says the Lord your God.