2 Kings 17:35
With whom the LORD had made a covenant, and charged them, saying, Ye shall not fear other gods, nor bow yourselves to them, nor serve them, nor sacrifice to them: With whom the LORD had made a covenant, and charged them, saying, Ye shall not fear other gods, nor bow yourselves to them, nor serve them, nor sacrifice to them:
With whom the LORD had made a covenant, He charged Israel to worship the LORD alone, not to fear other gods, nor bow themselves to them, nor serve them, nor sacrifice to them. Breaking that charge through sin and neglect of God's statutes led the Lord to suffer Israel's ancestors to be overcome by an idolatrous nation. Intermingled with idolaters for many generations, their own religion was gradually contaminated.
The Samaritans who broke this charge sprang from intermarriage of heathen colonists from the provinces of Assyria with the remnant of the ten tribes left in Samaria and Galilee. In later years they were joined by apostates. Their worship violated the command by mixing reverence for the true God with heathen idolatry, combining Jewish faith and customs and the ceremonies given through Moses with idol worship. Though they continued to revere the true God, they represented Him by images of wood and stone and bowed before them.
They held that their idols were only to remind them of the living God, the Ruler of the universe. Yet in heart and practice they were idolaters, led to reverence their graven images and prone to do so. Even after they sought instruction and reformed, they still clung to some idolatry and did not wholly renounce it. Even when they later worshiped on Mount Gerizim in accordance with the Mosaic ritual, idolatry remained. With apostates they built a rival temple on Mount Gerizim, and as neighbors of the Israelites rebuilding the temple their claim to be God's people became a source of lasting division and hostility.