2 Kings 17:24-41
"24 And the king of Assyria brought people from Babylon, Cuthah, Avva, Hamath, and Sepharvaim, and placed them in the cities of Samaria instead of the people of Israel. And they took possession of Samaria and lived in its cities. 25 And at the beginning of their dwelling there, they did not fear the Lord. Therefore the Lord sent lions among them, which killed some of them. 26 So the king of Assyria was told, “The nations that you have carried away and placed in the cities of Samaria do not know the law of the god of the land. Therefore he has sent lions among them, and behold, they are killing them, because they do not know the law of the god of the land.”27 Then the king of Assyria commanded, “Send there one of the priests whom you carried away from there, and let him go and dwell there and teach them the law of the god of the land.” 28 So one of the priests whom they had carried away from Samaria came and lived in Bethel and taught them how they should fear the Lord.
29 But every nation still made gods of its own and put them in the shrines of the high places that the Samaritans had made, every nation in the cities in which they lived. 30 The men of Babylon made Succoth-benoth, the men of Cuth made Nergal, the men of Hamath made Ashima, 31 and the Avvites made Nibhaz and Tartak; and the Sepharvites burned their children in the fire to Adrammelech and Anammelech, the gods of Sepharvaim. 32 They also feared the Lord and appointed from among themselves all sorts of people as priests of the high places, who sacrificed for them in the shrines of the high places. 33 So they feared the Lord but also served their own gods, after the manner of the nations from among whom they had been carried away.
34 To this day they do according to the former manner. They do not fear the Lord, and they do not follow the statutes or the rules or the law or the commandment that the Lord commanded the children of Jacob, whom he named Israel. 35 The Lord made a covenant with them and commanded them, “You shall not fear other gods or bow yourselves to them or serve them or sacrifice to them, 36 but you shall fear the Lord, who brought you out of the land of Egypt with great power and with an outstretched arm. You shall bow yourselves to him, and to him you shall sacrifice. 37 And the statutes and the rules and the law and the commandment that he wrote for you, you shall always be careful to do. You shall not fear other gods, 38 and you shall not forget the covenant that I have made with you. You shall not fear other gods, 39 but you shall fear the Lord your God, and he will deliver you out of the hand of all your enemies.” 40 However, they would not listen, but they did according to their former manner.
41 So these nations feared the Lord and also served their carved images. Their children did likewise, and their children's children—as their fathers did, so they do to this day."
The Assyrian emperor's next task was to re-people the land with foreign settlers. This must have added immeasurably to the bitter distress and humiliation of the Israelites in their exile, to realise that the land of the covenant, given them of old by the Lord, was now the possession of aliens. The Lord is nothing if not thorough. But His eye was still upon it, and it did not go well with those settlers when they introduced their heathen religions into it. The plague of lions that afflicted them reminds us of similar plagues that came upon the Philistines in the days of Samuel when the Ark was removed from Israel.
The interesting and significant thing in this passage, however, is the sending back of one of the Israelite priests to instruct the new settlers concerning 'the manner of the God of the land' (27). Here was a missionary opportunity if ever there was one! It is ironic to think that it took the king of Assyria to force Israel into her true calling as a light to the Gentiles. But alas, the spiritual rot had corrupted her priesthood to such an extent that no clear testimony to the living God was possible, and, notwithstanding the presence of a priest of the true God among them, every group made gods of its own, and included the God of Israel as one among many deities. This curious mixture, like modern freemasonry, bundling together the true and living God with all sorts of eastern idolatries, bears no relation, it scarcely needs to be said, to the true Biblical faith which asserts categorically that there is only one Name (not many) by which we may be saved. The astonishing paradox in 41 - 'feared the Lord and served their graven images' should be sufficient to convince any man that it is impossible to mix the Christian Gospel with anything else whatsoever, least of all with the pagan deities from Egypt and Babylon that flourish in freemasonry.