The Bible

Deuteronomy Chapter 7

¹When Yahweh your God brings you into the land where you go to possess it, and throws out many nations before you- the Hittite, the Girgashite, the Amorite, the Canaanite, the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite- seven nations greater and mightier than you; ²and when Yahweh your God delivers them up before you, and you strike them, then you must utterly destroy them. Don't make any covenant with them, or show mercy to them. ³Don't intermarry with them. Don't give your daughter to their son, nor take their daughter for your son. ⁴For that would turn away your son from following me, that they may serve other gods. So Yahweh's anger would be kindled against you, and he would destroy you quickly. ⁵But you are to deal with them like this: break down their altars, dash their pillars in pieces, cut down their Asherah poles, and burn their engraved images with fire. ⁶For you are a holy people to Yahweh your God. Yahweh your God has chosen you to be a people for his own possession, above all [the] peoples who are on the face of the earth. ⁷Yahweh didn't set his love on you or choose you because you were more in number than any people; for you were the fewest of all peoples; ⁸but because Yahweh loves you, and because he desires to keep the oath which he swore to your fathers, Yahweh has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you out of the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt. ⁹Know therefore that Yahweh your God himself is God, the faithful God, who keeps covenant and loving kindness to a thousand generations with those who love him and keep his commandments, ¹⁰and repays those who hate him to their face, to destroy them. He will not be slack to him who hates him. He will repay him to his face. ¹¹Therefore, keep the commandments, the statutes, and the ordinances which I command you today, to do them. ¹²Because you listen to these ordinances and keep [them] and do them, that Yahweh your God will keep with you the covenant and the loving kindness which he swore to your fathers. ¹³He will love you, bless you, and multiply you. He will also bless the fruit of your body and the fruit of your ground, your grain and your new wine and your oil, the young of your livestock and the young of your flock, in the land which he swore to your fathers to give you. ¹⁴You will be blessed above all peoples. There won't be male or female barren among you, or among your livestock. ¹⁵Yahweh will take all sickness away from you; and he will put none of the evil diseases of Egypt on you, which you know, but will lay them on all those who hate [you]. ¹⁶Consume all the peoples whom Yahweh your God delivers to you. Your eye must not pity them. Don't serve their gods; for that would be a snare to you. ¹⁷If you say in your heart, "These nations are more than I [am]; how can I dispossess [them]?" ¹⁸Don't be afraid of them. Remember well what Yahweh your God did to Pharaoh, and to all Egypt: ¹⁹the great trials which your eyes saw, the signs, the wonders, the mighty hand, and the outstretched arm, by which Yahweh your God brought you out. So Yahweh your God will do to all the peoples of whom you are afraid. ²⁰Furthermore Yahweh your God will send hornets among them, until those who are left and hide themselves from you, perish. ²¹Don't be scared of them; for Yahweh your God is among you, a great and awesome God. ²²Yahweh your God will throw out those nations before you little by little. You may not consume them [all] at once, otherwise the [wild] animals of the field might grow [too many for you]. ²³But Yahweh your God will deliver them up before you, and will confuse them with a great confusion, until they are destroyed. ²⁴He will deliver their kings into your hand, and you will make their name perish from under the sky. No one will be able to stand before you until you have destroyed them. ²⁵Burn the engraved images of their gods with fire. Don't covet the silver or the gold that is on them, nor take it for yourself, lest you be snared in it; for it is an abomination to Yahweh your God. ²⁶Don't bring an abomination into your house and become a devoted thing like it. Utterly detest it. Utterly abhor it; for it is a devoted thing.