19
But even the people of Judah did not obey the laws of the Lord their God; they imitated the customs adopted by the people of Israel.
20
The Lord rejected all the Israelites, punishing them and handing them over to cruel enemies until at last he had banished them from his sight.
21
After the Lord had separated Israel from Judah, the Israelites made Jeroboam son of Nebat their king. Jeroboam caused them to abandon the Lord and led them into terrible sins.
22
They followed Jeroboam and continued to practice all the sins he had committed,
23
until at last the Lord banished them from his sight, as he had warned through his servants the prophets that he would do. So the people of Israel were taken into exile to Assyria, where they still live.
24
The emperor of Assyria took people from the cities of Babylon, Cuth, Ivvah, Hamath, and Sepharvaim, and settled them in the cities of Samaria in place of the exiled Israelites. They took possession of these cities and lived there.
25
When they first settled there, they did not worship the Lord, and so he sent lions, which killed some of them.
26
The emperor of Assyria was told that the people he had settled in the cities of Samaria did not know the law of the god of that land, and so the god had sent lions, which were killing them.
27
So the emperor commanded: "Send back one of the priests we brought as prisoners; have him go back and live there, in order to teach the people the law of the god of that land."
28
So an Israelite priest who had been deported from Samaria went and lived in Bethel, where he taught the people how to worship the Lord.
29
But the people who settled in Samaria continued to make their own idols, and they placed them in the shrines that the Israelites had built. Each different group made idols in the cities they were living in: