Today’s reading has a summary of the reason for Israel’s fall. The people were taken into captivity because of the sins they committed against God, despite repeated warnings from the prophets. The historical record spells it out. The Samaritans mixed religions as the Israelites had done. It seems as if they had one foot with the world and one foot with the Lord.  The nation of Israel was taken captive.  Today, we too can be taken captive by false teaching, traditions of men, and hollow philosophy.   God warned Moses and Joshua about mixing with the nations, mixing with their religions, their false gods and pagan practices.  We are warned about the same things today. 

II Kings 17:15 They rejected his decrees and the covenant he had made with their fathers and the warnings he had given them. They followed worthless idols and themselves became worthless. They imitated the nations around them although the Lord had ordered them, “Do not do as they do,” and they did the things the Lord had forbidden them to do.

Israel suffered because they imitated the pagan.  Do we today imitate the pagan?  Do we have false gods and idols that pull us away from a close relationship with the Lord?

II Kings 17:41
Even while these people were worshiping the LORD, they were serving their idols. To this day their children and grandchildren continue to do as their fathers did.  

The people were only giving "lip service" to the Lord.  If they were truly worshiping Him, they would be convicted of their sins and would stop worshiping the Lord in pagan ways. Same thing applies to us today.  We can't just give Him "lip service".  We need to give Him "heart service".

There are so many lessons we can learn from the Old Testament…all the mistakes that God’s people have made in the past are spelled out for us, repeatedly. The consequences of those mistakes are also spelled out, repeatedly. Why can’t we learn from them?  If we don't learn from them and make it personal, then the Old Testament is just another history book.