To this day they continue in their former practices. They do not worship the LORD, and they do not follow the statutes or the ordinances or the law or the commandment that the LORD commanded the children of Jacob, whom he named Israel — the theological evaluation of the Samaritan syncretism is unambiguous: they "do not worship the LORD" (לֹא־יִשְׁמְרוּ אֶת־הַחֻקִּים, *lo-yishmeru et-ha-chukim*) and they "do not follow the statutes or the ordinances or the law or the commandment that the LORD commanded." The specific reference to "Jacob, whom he named Israel" invokes the patriarchal covenant and the promise of the land. The Samaria population's failure to keep covenant law represents their exclusion from the covenant relationship. This verse establishes the theological basis for later Judean rejection of the Samaritans: they represent a compromised, syncretic form of Yahwism without genuine covenant obedience.

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