2 Kings 17:21

"Faithless Israel has shown itself less guilty than false Judah." The letter of the text just read has something unclear that we need to understand first. Then, after this, if God wills, we shall know his mystical plan. He wants us then to know in these words, just as it is written in Kings, that the people were divided in those times into the kingdom of ten tribes under Jeroboam and the kingdom of two tribes under Roboam. And those under Jeroboam were called Israel, and those under Roboam Judah. And the division of the people persisted, according to the history, until today. For we know of nothing in the history that united Israel and Judah "into the same nation." Then Israel first, under Jeroboam and under his successors, sinned excessively, and Israel sinned so much beyond Judah that they were sentenced by providence to become captives "to the Assyrians until the sign," as the Scripture says. After this, the people of Judah also sinned, and as captives they were sentenced to Babylon, not until a sign, as Israel, but for "seventy years," as Jeremiah prophesied and Daniel also mentioned.

Finally, how inseparable is the sacrament of unity and how hopeless are they and what greatest perdition they seek for themselves from the indignation of God—they who make a schism and, after having abandoned their bishop, appoint for themselves another false bishop from without—the divine Scripture declares in the book of Kings, when from the tribe of Judah and Benjamin ten tribes were separated and, abandoning their king, appointed themselves another from without. "And the Lord was offended," it says, "at all the seed of Israel, and afflicted them and delivered them up to plunder till he cast them away from his face because Israel was torn from the house of David, and they made Jeroboam son of Nabath their king." It said that the Lord was offended and gave them over to perdition because they had been dispersed from unity and had appointed another king for themselves.And so great indignation of the Lord remained against those who had made the schism that even when the man of God had been sent to Jeroboam to upbraid him for his sins and to foretell future vengeance, he was forbidden also to eat bread and to drink water among them. Since he had not heeded this and had dined contrary to the precept of God, he was immediately stricken by the majesty of divine censure; on his return, he was killed on the journey by the attack and bite of a lion. And does anyone of you dare to say that the life-giving water of baptism and heavenly grace can be common with schismatics with whom neither earthly food nor worldly drink ought to be common? Moreover, the Lord satisfies us in his gospel and reveals a greater light of understanding that the same people who then had separated themselves from the tribe of Judah and Benjamin and, after having abandoned Jerusalem, had withdrawn to Samaria should be reputed among the profane and the Gentiles. […]

[The Lord] takes hold of two principal lions, the Assyrians and the Babylonians. According to the history in the fourth book of Kings, there are two. For Assyria removed the sons of Israel to Assyria "until today," but Babylon removed the sons of Judah "to Babylon." Except he did not say here first and second, but first and last. For the first lion is the antagonistic devil; he is a murderer.

A great sin - So the worship of the calves is called, to meet with that idle conceit of the Israelites, who esteemed it a small sin, especially when they were forced to it by severe penalties; which yet he shews did not excuse it from being a sin, and a great sin too.

For he rent Israel from the house of David,....