2 Kings 18:9-12
"9 In the fourth year of King Hezekiah, which was the seventh year of Hoshea son of Elah, king of Israel, Shalmaneser king of Assyria came up against Samaria and besieged it, 10 and at the end of three years he took it. In the sixth year of Hezekiah, which was the ninth year of Hoshea king of Israel, Samaria was taken. 11 The king of Assyria carried the Israelites away to Assyria and put them in Halah, and on the Habor, the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes, 12 because they did not obey the voice of the Lordtheir God but transgressed his covenant, even all that Moses the servant of the Lord commanded. They neither listened nor obeyed."
This brief summary of the captivity of the northern kingdom is recorded at this point to stand, it would seem, in contrast with the revival in the south under Hezekiah, and to complete the picture of the two alternatives that face men and nations. To trust, as Judah did under Hezekiah, is to know the blessing and presence of the Lord (7); to disobey Him, as Israel did (12) is to bring disaster. One is forcibly reminded of Moses' words to the children of Israel in Deuteronomy 30:19 (did our historian have these words in mind when he penned 12)): 'I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life'). The warnings of Moses were only too clear, but Israel neglected to heed them, and paid the price of her folly. We have the words of a greater than Moses, even Christ, and we may take this solemn record in Kings as a picture-book illus- tration, so to speak, of His teaching in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 7:13- 29) where He presents to His hearers the two ways, and the two foundations, and lays the responsibility of choice fairly and squarely upon them. This is the grim earnestness of life, from which there can be no escape. It is we who must choose, for weal or woe. The responsibility is ours, and ours alone. In this sense, to use Paul's words in Galatians 6:5, 'Every man shall bear his own burden.'