Let me tell you two stories...
The first comes out of 2 Kings 17, and it's a story of what the Assyrians were notorious for doing to the people that they conquered. Assyria has just conquered Israel and type keep the people from revolt against the king, the king blended people from five other people groups into the land of Samaria with the Samaritans. The people from the five other nations brought with them their own gods, mixing together five different traditions of gods. Lions became a problem in the region attacking villages and brutally killing the people. A wise thought came to the Assyrian King; maybe the lions were a result of the people not worshiping the god of the land of Israel? So he sent some of Israel's priests to Samaria to teach the people how to worship the Lord, and they settled in Sechem. However, the people continued to worship the gods from the five nations, made their own priests, did not follow Torah, nor worship God properly. "They woshiped the Lord, but they also served their idols." Even though they claimed to worship God, they did not.
Along walks Jesus hundreds of years later to the town of Sechem...
