Deuteronomy 7
You Are God’s People
1 The Lord your God will bring you into the land that you are entering and that you will have as your own. As you go in, he will force out these nations: the Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites—seven nations that are stronger than you.2 The Lord your God will hand these nations over to you, and when you defeat them, you must destroy them completely. Do not make a peace treaty with them or show them any mercy.3 Do not marry any of them, or let your daughters marry their sons, or let your sons marry their daughters.4 If you do, those people will turn your children away from me, to begin serving other gods. Then the Lord will be very angry with you, and he will quickly destroy you.5 This is what you must do to those people: Tear down their altars, smash their holy stone pillars, cut down their Asherah idols, and burn their idols in the fire.
6 You are holy people who belong to the Lord your God. He has chosen you from all the people on earth to be his very own.
7 The Lord did not care for you and choose you because there were many of you—you are the smallest nation of all.8 But the Lord chose you because he loved you, and he kept his promise to your ancestors. So he brought you out of Egypt by his great power and freed you from the land of slavery, from the power of the king of Egypt.9 So know that the Lord your God is God, the faithful God. He will keep his agreement of love for a thousand lifetimes for people who love him and obey his commands.10 But he will pay back those people who hate him. He will destroy them, and he will not be slow to pay back those who hate him.
11 So be careful to obey the commands, rules, and laws I give you today.
12 If you pay attention to these laws and obey them carefully, the Lord your God will keep his agreement and show his love to you, as he promised your ancestors.13 He will love and bless you. He will make the number of your people grow; he will bless you with children. He will bless your fields with good crops and will give you grain, new wine, and oil. He will bless your herds with calves and your flocks with lambs in the land he promised your ancestors he would give you.14 You will be blessed more than any other people. Every husband and wife will have children, and all your cattle will have calves.15 The Lord will take away all disease from you; you will not have the terrible diseases that were in Egypt, but he will give them to all the people who hate you.
16 You must destroy all the people the Lord your God hands over to you. Do not feel sorry for them, and do not worship their gods, or they will trap you.
17 You might say to yourselves, “Because these nations are stronger than we are, we can’t force them out.”18 But don’t be afraid of them. Remember what the Lord your God did to all of Egypt and its king.19 You saw for yourselves the troubles, signs, and miracles he did, how the Lord’s great power and strength brought you out of Egypt. The Lord your God will do the same thing to all the nations you now fear.20 The Lord your God will also send terror among them so that even those who are alive and hiding from you will die.21 Don’t be afraid of them, because the Lord your God is with you; he is a great God and people are afraid of him.22 When the Lord your God forces those nations out of the land, he will do it little by little ahead of you. You won’t be able to destroy them all at once; otherwise, the wild animals will grow too many in number.23 But the Lord your God will hand those nations over to you, confusing them until they are destroyed.24 The Lord will help you defeat their kings, and the world will forget who they were. No one will be able to stop you; you will destroy them all.25 Burn up their idols in the fire. Do not wish for the silver and gold they have, and don’t take it for yourselves, or you will be trapped by it. The Lord your God hates it.26 Do not bring one of those hateful things into your house, or you will be completely destroyed along with it. Hate and reject those things; they must be completely destroyed.
Deuteronomy 7
1 When Jehovah thy God shall bring thee into the land whither thou goest to possess it, and shall cast out many nations before thee, the Hittite, and the Girgashite, and the Amorite, and the Canaanite, and the Perizzite, and the Hivite, and the Jebusite, seven nations greater and mightier than thou;2 and when Jehovah thy God shall deliver them up before thee, and thou shalt smite them; then thou shalt utterly destroy them: thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor show mercy unto them;3 neither shalt thou make marriages with them; thy daughter thou shalt not give unto his son, nor his daughter shalt thou take unto thy son.4 For he will turn away thy son from following me, that they may serve other gods: so will the anger of Jehovah be kindled against you, and he will destroy thee quickly.5 But thus shall ye deal with them: ye shall break down their altars, and dash in pieces their pillars, and hew down their Asherim, and burn their graven images with fire.
6 For thou art a holy people unto Jehovah thy God: Jehovah thy God hath chosen thee to be a people for his own possession, above all peoples that are upon the face of the earth.7 Jehovah did not set his love upon you, nor choose you, because ye were more in number than any people; for ye were the fewest of all peoples:8 but because Jehovah loveth you, and because he would keep the oath which he sware unto your fathers, hath Jehovah brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you out of the house of bondage, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.9 Know therefore that Jehovah thy God, he is God, the faithful God, who keepeth covenant and lovingkindness with them that love him and keep his commandments to a thousand generations,10 and repayeth them that hate him to their face, to destroy them: he will not be slack to him that hateth him, he will repay him to his face.11 Thou shalt therefore keep the commandment, and the statutes, and the ordinances, which I command thee this day, to do them.
12 And it shall come to pass, because ye hearken to these ordinances, and keep and do them, that Jehovah thy God will keep with thee the covenant and the lovingkindness which he sware unto thy fathers:13 and he will love thee, and bless thee, and multiply thee; he will also bless the fruit of thy body and the fruit of thy ground, thy grain and thy new wine and thine oil, the increase of thy cattle and the young of thy flock, in the land which he sware unto thy fathers to give thee.14 Thou shalt be blessed above all peoples: there shall not be male or female barren among you, or among your cattle.15 And Jehovah will take away from thee all sickness; and none of the evil diseases of Egypt, which thou knowest, will he put upon thee, but will lay them upon all them that hate thee.16 And thou shalt consume all the peoples that Jehovah thy God shall deliver unto thee; thine eye shall not pity them: neither shalt thou serve their gods; for that will be a snare unto thee.
17 If thou shalt say in thy heart, These nations are more than I; how can I dispossess them?18 thou shalt not be afraid of them: thou shalt well remember what Jehovah thy God did unto Pharaoh, and unto all Egypt;19 the great trials which thine eyes saw, and the signs, and the wonders, and the mighty hand, and the outstretched arm, whereby Jehovah thy God brought thee out: so shall Jehovah thy God do unto all the peoples of whom thou art afraid.20 Moreover Jehovah thy God will send the hornet among them, until they that are left, and hide themselves, perish from before thee.21 Thou shalt not be affrighted at them; for Jehovah thy God is in the midst of thee, a great God and a terrible.22 And Jehovah thy God will cast out those nations before thee by little and little: thou mayest not consume them at once, lest the beasts of the field increase upon thee.23 But Jehovah thy God will deliver them up before thee, and will discomfit them with a great discomfiture, until they be destroyed.24 And he will deliver their kings into thy hand, and thou shalt make their name to perish from under heaven: there shall no man be able to stand before thee, until thou have destroyed them.25 The graven images of their gods shall ye burn with fire: thou shalt not covet the silver or the gold that is on them, nor take it unto thee, lest thou be snared therein; for it is an abomination to Jehovah thy God.26 And thou shalt not bring an abomination into thy house, and become a devoted thing like unto it: thou shalt utterly detest it, and thou shalt utterly abhor it; for it is a devoted thing.