When the ten tribes of Israel were taken into captivity, the king of Assyria resettled foreigners in the region of Samaria. These newcomers intermarried with the remaining Israelites and caused them to worship their own pagan idols. Due to intermarriage and religious syncretism (compromise), Samaritans became universally despised by the remaining Jews who did not intermarry with foreigners. And it was these same Samaritans that wrote to King Artaxerxes imploring him to put an end to the rebuilding of Jerusalem and the second temple during the days of Ezra and Nehemiah.