Deuteronomy 7

¹When the LORD your God brings you into the land that you are entering to possess it, and clears away many nations before you -- the Hittites, the Girgashites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites -- seven nations more numerous and mightier than you,

²And when the Lord your God delivers them before you and you strike them down, you shall utterly devote them to destruction. You shall make no covenant with them and shall show them no mercy.

³You shall not intermarry with them. Your daughter you shall not give to his son, and his daughter you shall not take for your son,

⁴For he will turn your son away from following me, and they will serve other gods, and the anger of the LORD will be kindled against you, and he will destroy you quickly.

⁵But rather, thus you shall do to them: their altars you shall tear down, their sacred pillars you shall smash, their Asherah poles you shall cut down, and their carved idols you shall burn with fire.

⁶For you are a holy people to the LORD your God; the LORD your God has chosen you to be for him a people of his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are upon the face of the earth.

⁷Not because of the multitude of you all beyond all peoples did the LORD set his affection on you all and choose you all, for you all are the fewest of all peoples.

⁸but because of the love of the LORD for you and his keeping of the sworn oath that he swore to the fathers of you all, the LORD brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slaves, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.

⁹And you shall know that the Lord your God, he is the true God, the faithful God, who keeps covenant and steadfast love for those who love him and keep his commandments, to a thousand generations.

¹⁰and he repays those who hate him to their face by destroying them; he will not delay with one who hates him -- to his face he will repay him.

¹¹And you shall keep the commandment, the statutes, and the judgments that I am commanding you today, to do them.

¹²And it shall come to pass, because you all listen to these ordinances and keep and do them, that the LORD your God will keep for you the covenant and the steadfast love that he swore to your fathers.

¹³And he will love you and bless you and multiply you; and he will bless the fruit of your womb and the fruit of your ground, your grain and your new wine and your olive oil, the offspring of your cattle and the young of your flock, upon the land that he swore to your fathers to give to you.

¹⁴You shall be blessed above all peoples; there shall not be among you a barren male or barren female, and not among your livestock.

¹⁵And the LORD will remove from you all sickness; and all the terrible diseases of Egypt that you experienced he will not put on you, but will put them on all who hate you.

¹⁶And you shall devour all the peoples that the LORD your God gives to you; your eye shall not pity them, and you shall not serve their gods, for it is a snare to you.

¹⁷If you say in your heart, 'These nations are more numerous than I — how am I able to dispossess them?'

¹⁸You shall not be afraid of them. You shall surely remember what the LORD your God did to Pharaoh and to all Egypt.

¹⁹the great trials that your eyes saw, and the signs and wonders and the mighty hand and the outstretched arm by which the LORD your God brought you out -- so will the LORD your God do to all the peoples of whom you are afraid.

²⁰Moreover, the hornet the LORD your God will send among them, until those who are remaining and those who are hiding from before you perish.

²¹You shall not be terrified before them, for the LORD your God is in your midst, a great and awesome God.

²²And the LORD your God will drive away 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.

²³And the LORD your God will give them over before you, and he will throw them into great confusion, until they are destroyed.

²⁴And he will give their kings into your hand, and you shall destroy their name from under the heavens; no man will take his stand before you, until you have destroyed them.

²⁵The carved images of their gods you shall burn with fire. You shall not covet the silver and gold that is on them and take it for yourself, lest you be ensnared by it, for it is an abomination to the LORD your God.

²⁶And you shall not bring an abomination into your house, or you will become a devoted thing like it; you shall utterly detest it and utterly abhor it, for it is a devoted thing.