Chapter 7
1
When the LORD your God brings you into the land you are entering to possess, he will dispossess many nations before you—the Hittites, the Girgashites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, seven nations more numerous and mighty than you.
2
And the LORD your God will give them before you, and you will strike them; the ban—you will ban them. You shall not cut a covenant with them, and you shall not favor them.
3
And you shall not intermarry with them: you shall not give your daughter to his son, and you shall not take his daughter to your son.
4
for he will turn your son away from following him and serve other gods, and the nose of the LORD will burn against you and destroy you quickly.
5
You shall do this to them instead: you shall tear down their altars, break their sacred pillars, cut down their Asherah poles, and burn their idols in fire.
6
For you are a holy people to the LORD your God. The LORD your God has chosen you from all the peoples on the face of the ground to be his treasured possession.
7
Not because you were more numerous than all the peoples did the LORD attach to you and choose you, for you are the fewest of all the peoples.
8
Because of the LORD's love for you and his keeping the oath that he swore to your fathers, the LORD brought you out with a strong hand and redeemed you from the house of slaves, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.
9
You shall know that the LORD your God is the faithful God, who keeps the covenant and steadfast love for those who love him and keep his commandments to a thousand generations.
10
and repaying his haters to their face. He will not delay to destroy him; to his hater to his face he will repay him.
11
You shall keep the commandment, the statutes, and the judgments that I am commanding you today, to do them.
12
Because you listen to these judgments and keep and do them, the LORD your God will keep for you the covenant and steadfast love that he swore to your fathers.
13
And the LORD will love you and bless you and multiply you and bless the fruit of your womb and the fruit of your land, your grain and your new wine and your fresh oil, the firstborn of your cattle and the increase of your flock, in the land that he swore to your fathers to give you.
14
You will be blessed above all the peoples; there will not be among you a barren male or barren female, nor among your livestock.
15
And the LORD will remove from you every sickness and every evil plague of Egypt that you knew; he will not put them on you, and he will put them on all your haters.
16
And you shall eat all the peoples whom the LORD your God gives to you; do not spare them, and do not serve their gods, for that would be a snare to you.
17
If you say in your heart, "These nations are more numerous than I; how can I dispossess them?"
18
Do not fear them; remember what the LORD your God did to Pharaoh and to all Egypt.
19
the hiding of the great one that your eyes saw, and the signs and the wonders, and the strong hand and the outstretched arm with which the LORD your God brought you out—so the LORD your God will do to all the peoples of whom you are afraid.
20
The LORD your God will also send the hornet among them until the remaining and the hidden ones perish from before you.
21
You shall not fear them, for the LORD your God is in your midst, a great and awesome God.
22
And the LORD your God will dispossess those nations before you little by little; you will not be able to finish them off quickly, lest the wild animals of the field multiply against you.
23
The LORD your God will give them before you, and he will rout them with a great panic until he destroys them.
24
He will give their kings into your hand, and you will cause their name to perish from under the heavens. No man will station himself in your presence until you destroy them.
25
The idols of their gods you shall burn with fire. You shall not covet the silver and gold on them and take it for yourself, lest you be ensnared by it, for it is an abomination to the LORD your God.
26
You shall not bring an abomination into your house and become herem like it—a detestable thing—you shall utterly detest it and abominate it—you shall abominate it, for it is herem.