³⁴ To this day they persist in their former practices. They neither worship the Lord nor adhere to the decrees and regulations, the laws and commands that the Lord gave the descendants of Jacob, whom he named Israel.^(A)

¹⁰ God said to him, “Your name is Jacob,^[a] but you will no longer be called Jacob; your name will be Israel.^[b]”^(A) So he named him Israel.

²⁸ Then the man said, “Your name^(A) will no longer be Jacob, but Israel,^[a](B) because you have struggled with God and with humans and have overcome.”^(C)

Stubborn Israel

³³ They worshiped the Lord, but they also served their own gods in accordance with the customs of the nations from which they had been brought.

²⁷ Then the king of Assyria gave this order: “Have one of the priests you took captive from Samaria go back to live there and teach the people what the god of the land requires.” ²⁸ So one of the priests who had been exiled from Samaria came to live in Bethel and taught them how to worship the Lord.

²⁵ When they first lived there, they did not worship the Lord; so he sent lions^(A) among them and they killed some of the people.

³¹ Elijah took twelve stones, one for each of the tribes descended from Jacob, to whom the word of the Lord had come, saying, “Your name shall be Israel.”^(A)

¹¹ But now you tell me to go to my master and say, ‘Elijah is here.’