2 Esdras 13:40-42

Revised Standard Version

⁴⁰ these are the ten tribes which were led away from their own land into captivity in the days of King Hoshe′a, whom Shalmane′ser the king of the Assyrians led captive; he took them across the river, and they were taken into another land. ⁴¹ But they formed this plan for themselves, that they would leave the multitude of the nations and go to a more distant region, where mankind had never lived, ⁴² that there at least they might keep their statutes which they had not kept in their own land.