Deuteronomy 7

1 When the Lord your God takes you into the land where you are going, which is to be your heritage, and has sent out the nations before you, the Hittites and the Girgashites and the Amorites and the Canaanites and the Perizzites and the Hivites and the Jebusites, seven nations greater and stronger than you;

“Yahweh our God will bring you to the land that you will soon enter and occupy. As you advance, he will expel from that land seven people-groups that are more powerful and more numerous than you are. He will expel the Heth people-group, the Girgash people-group, the Amor people-group, the Canaan people-group, the Periz people-group, the Hiv people-group, and the Jebus people-group.

2 And when the Lord has given them up into your hands and you have overcome them, give them up to complete destruction: make no agreement with them, and have no mercy on them:

When Yahweh our God enables you to defeat [DOU] them, you must kill all of them. You must not make (an alliance/a peace treaty) with any of them. You must not act mercifully toward them.

3 Do not take wives or husbands from among them; do not give your daughters to their sons, or take their daughters for your sons.

You must not marry any of them. You must not allow your daughters to marry any of their sons or allow your sons to marry any of their daughters.

4 For through them your sons will be turned from me to the worship of other gods: and the Lord will be moved to wrath against you and send destruction on you quickly.

Because, if you did that, those people would cause your children to stop worshiping Yahweh and to worship other gods. If that happens, Yahweh will be very angry with you and he will get rid of you immediately.

5 But this is what you are to do to them: their altars are to be pulled down and their pillars broken, and their holy trees cut down and their images burned with fire.

This is what you must do to those people: Tear down their (altars/places for sacrificing animals), break apart the stone pillars [that are dedicated to their male god Baal], cut down the [poles that they use when they worship the goddess] Asherah, and burn their [wooden] idols.

6 For you are a holy people to the Lord your God: marked out by the Lord your God to be his special people out of all the nations on the face of the earth.

You must do that because you are a group of people who belong to Yahweh our God. He has chosen you from among all the people-groups in the world to be his own special people.

7 The Lord did not give you his love or take you for himself because you were more in number than any other people; for you were the smallest of the nations:

“It was not because you were more numerous than any other people-group that Yahweh preferred you; you are one of the smallest people-groups on the earth.

8 But because of his love for you, and in order to keep his oath to your fathers, the Lord took you out with the strength of his hand, making you free from the prison-house and from the hand of Pharaoh, king of Egypt.

Instead, it is because Yahweh loved you and because he wanted to do what he vowed to your ancestors. That is the reason that he rescued you by his great power [MTY], and freed you from being slaves [MTY] of the king of Egypt.

9 Be certain, then, that the Lord your God is God; whose faith and mercy are unchanging, who keeps his word through a thousand generations to those who have love for him and keep his laws;

So do not forget that Yahweh our God is the only/true God. He will do what he agreed to do for you, and he will faithfully love (for 1,000 generations/forever) all those who love him and who obey his commandments.

10 Rewarding his haters to their face with destruction; he will have no mercy on his hater, but will give him open punishment.

But for those who hate him, he will (pay them back/do to them what they deserve); he will punish them and quickly get rid of them.

11 So keep the orders and the laws and the decisions which I give you today and do them.

“So you must be sure to obey all the commandments and rules and regulations that I am giving to you today.

12 And it will be, that if you give attention to these decisions and keep and do them, then the Lord will keep his agreement with you and his mercy, as he said in his oath to your fathers.

If you heed these commands and obey them faithfully, Yahweh our God will do what he has agreed to do for you, and he will faithfully love you, which is what he vowed to your ancestors that he would do.

13 And he will give you his love, blessing you and increasing you: he will send his blessing on the offspring of your body and the fruit of your land, your grain and your wine and your oil, the increase of your cattle and the young of your flock, in the land which by his oath to your fathers he undertook to give you.

He will love you and bless you. He will enable you to have many children [DOU]. He will bless your fields, with the result that you will have plenty of grain and [grapes to make] wine and plenty of [olive] oil. You will have many cattle and sheep. He will do all these things for you in the land that he promised to your ancestors that he would give to you.

14 You will have greater blessings than any other people: no male or female among you or among your cattle will be without offspring.

He will bless you more than he will bless any other people-group. All of you will be able to have/produce children [LIT]. All of your livestock will be able to produce offspring.

15 And the Lord will take away from you all disease, and will not put on you any of the evil diseases of Egypt which you have seen, but will put them on your haters.

And Yahweh will protect you from all illnesses. You will not be afflicted with any of the dreadful diseases that [our ancestors knew about] in Egypt, but all your enemies will be inflicted with those diseases.

16 And you are to send destruction on all the peoples which the Lord your God gives into your hands; have no pity on them, and do not give worship to their gods; for that will be a cause of sin to you.

You must get rid of all the people-groups that Yahweh our God will enable you to conquer. Do not [SYN] act mercifully toward any of them. And do not worship their gods, because if you do that, it would be like falling into a trap [from which you will never be able to escape].

17 If you say in your hearts, These nations are greater in number than we are: how are we to take their land from them?

“Do not think to yourselves, ‘These people-groups are more numerous/powerful than we are, so we certainly cannot [RHQ] expel them.’

18 Have no fear of them, but keep well in mind what the Lord your God did to Pharaoh and to all Egypt;

Do not be afraid of them. Instead, think about what Yahweh our God did to the king of Egypt and to all the people whom he [ruled].

19 The great punishments which your eyes saw, and the signs and the wonders and the strong hand and the stretched-out arm, by which the Lord your God took you out: so will the Lord your God do to all the peoples who are the cause of your fears.

Do not forget the terrible plagues that your ancestors saw [Yahweh inflict on the people of Egypt], and the many [DOU] miracles [that he performed], and the very powerful [DOU, MTY] way by which he brought your ancestors out [of Egypt]. Yahweh our God will do the same kind of things to the people-groups that you are afraid of now.

20 And the Lord will send a hornet among them, till all the rest who have kept themselves safe from you in secret places have been cut off.

Furthermore, he will cause them to become terrified, and he will destroy those who remain alive and run away to hide from you.

21 Have no fear of them: for the Lord your God is with you, a great God greatly to be feared.

Do not be afraid of those people, because Yahweh our God will be with/among you. He is a great God; he is the one you should be afraid of.

22 The Lord your God will send out the nations before you little by little; they are not to be rooted out quickly, for fear that the beasts of the field may be increased overmuch against you.

He will expel those people-groups gradually. You should not [try to] expel all of them at one time, because if you did that, the number of wild animals would quickly increase, [and you would not be able to get rid of them].

23 But the Lord your God will give them up into your hands, overpowering them till their destruction is complete.

Instead, Yahweh will enable you to defeat your enemies [one people-group at a time]. He will cause them to panic until they are destroyed.

24 He will give their kings into your hands, and you will put their names out of existence under heaven; there is not one of them who will not give way before you, till their destruction is complete.

He will enable you to defeat [IDM] their kings. After you kill them, their names will be forgotten {people will forget about them}. No people-group will be able to stop you; you will destroy all of them.

25 The images of their gods are to be burned with fire: have no desire for the gold and silver on them, and do not take it for yourselves, for it will be a danger to you: it is a thing disgusting to the Lord your God:

You must burn the wooden idols [that represent] their gods. Do not desire to take the silver or gold [decorations] that are on those idols, because if you take them for yourselves, they will be like a trap [to cause you to want to worship those idols]. Yahweh hates [the worship of those idols].

26 And you may not take a disgusting thing into your house, and so become cursed with its curse: but keep yourselves from it, turning from it with fear and hate, for it is a cursed thing.

You must not bring any of those disgusting idols into your houses, because if you do that, God will curse you like he curses them. You must hate and despise [DOU] those idols, because they are things that [Yahweh] has cursed.”