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Israel Carried Captive to Assyria

5 Then the king of Assyria invaded all the land and came to Samaria; for three years he besieged it. ⁶In the ninth year of Hoshea, the king of Assyria captured Samaria; he carried the Israelites away to Assyria. He placed them in Halah, on the Habor, the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes.

7 This occurred because the people of Israel had sinned against the Lord their God, who had brought them up out of the land of Egypt from under the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt. They had worshipped other gods ⁸and walked in the customs of the nations whom the Lord drove out before the people of Israel, and in the customs that the kings of Israel had introduced.^{* 13}Yet the Lord warned Israel and Judah by every prophet and every seer, saying, ‘Turn from your evil ways and keep my commandments and my statutes, in accordance with all the law that I commanded your ancestors and that I sent to you by my servants the prophets.’ ¹⁴They would not listen but were stubborn, as their ancestors had been, who did not believe in the Lord their God. ¹⁵They despised his statutes, and his covenant that he made with their ancestors, and the warnings that he gave them. They went after false idols and became false; they followed the nations that were around them, concerning whom the Lord had commanded them that they should not do as they did. ¹⁸Therefore the Lord was very angry with Israel and removed them out of his sight; none was left but the tribe of Judah alone.

Psalm 60

Prayer for National Victory after Defeat

To the leader: according to The Lily of the Covenant. A Miktam of David; for instruction; when he struggled with Aram-naharaim and with Aram-zobah, and when Joab on his return killed twelve thousand Edomites in the Valley of Salt.
¹ O God, you have rejected us, broken our defences;
   you have been angry; now restore us!
³ You have made your people suffer hard things;
   you have given us wine to drink that made us reel.

⁴ You have set up a banner for those who fear you,
   to rally to it out of bowshot.^*
          Selah
⁵ Give victory with your right hand, and answer us,^*
   so that those whom you love may be rescued.

¹² With God we shall do valiantly;
   it is he who will tread down our foes.

Judging Others

7‘Do not judge, so that you may not be judged. ²For with the judgement you make you will be judged, and the measure you give will be the measure you get. ³Why do you see the speck in your neighbour’s^* eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye? ⁴Or how can you say to your neighbour,^* “Let me take the speck out of your eye”, while the log is in your own eye? ⁵You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbour’s^* eye.