Drive Out the Nations
When the LORD your God brings you into the land into which you are going, to possess it, and clears away many nations from before you — the Hittite, and the Girgashite, and the Amorite, and the Canaanite, and the Perizzite, and the Hivite, and the Jebusite, seven nations more numerous and mightier than you —
and the LORD your God gives them before you, and you strike them down: you shall surely devote them to destruction. You shall cut no covenant with them, and show them no favor.
And you shall not intermarry with them: your daughter you shall not give to his son, and his daughter you shall not take for your son.
For he would turn your son from following me, and they would serve other gods; and the anger of the LORD would burn against you, and he would destroy you quickly.
But thus you shall do to them: their altars you shall tear down, and their standing stones you shall shatter, and their Asherah poles you shall cut down, and their carved images you shall burn with fire.
For you are a holy people to the LORD your God. You the LORD your God has chosen to be for him a treasured people out of all the peoples that are on the face of the ground.
Not because you were more numerous than all the peoples did the LORD set his desire on you and choose you — for you were the fewest of all the peoples —
but 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 ransomed you from the house of slaves, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.
And you shall know that the LORD your God — he is God, the faithful God, keeping the covenant and the loyal love with those who love him and keep his commandments, to a thousand generations,
and repaying those who hate him to their face, to destroy them. He will not delay with the one who hates him; to his face he will repay him.
So you shall keep the commandment, and the statutes, and the judgments that I am commanding you today, to do them.
The Promises of God
And it shall be, because you hear these judgments and keep and do them, that the LORD your God will keep for you the covenant and the loyal love that he swore to your fathers.
And 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 fresh oil — the offspring of your cattle and the young of your flock, on the ground that he swore to your fathers to give you.
Blessed shall you be above all the peoples; there shall not be among you a barren male or female, nor among your beasts.
And the LORD will turn aside from you every sickness; and none of the evil diseases of Egypt, which you knew, will he put on you — but he will lay them on all who hate you.
And you shall consume all the peoples that the LORD your God is giving you. Your eye shall not pity them; and you shall not serve their gods, for that would be a snare to you.
If you say in your heart, “These nations are more numerous than I — how can I dispossess them?” —
you shall not fear them. You shall surely remember what the LORD your God did to Pharaoh and to all Egypt:
the great trials that your eyes saw, and the signs, and the wonders, and the strong hand, and the outstretched arm by which the LORD your God brought you out. So shall the LORD your God do to all the peoples before whom you fear.
And the hornet also the LORD your God will send among them, until those who are left and those who hide themselves from before you perish.
You shall not be terrified before them, for the LORD your God is in your midst — a great and fearful God.
And the LORD your God will clear away these nations from before you little by little. You will not be able to finish them off quickly, lest the beasts of the field multiply against you.
But the LORD your God will give them before you, and throw them into great confusion until they are destroyed.
And he will give their kings into your hand, and you shall destroy their name from under the heavens. No man will be able to stand before you, until you have destroyed them.
The carved images 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 snared by it — for it is an abomination to the LORD your God.
And you shall not bring an abomination into your house, and become devoted to destruction like it. You shall utterly detest it, and utterly abhor it — for it is devoted to destruction.