Deuteronomy 7

1 “When the Lord your God will have led you to the land, which you will enter so as to possess it, and when he will have destroyed many nations before you, the Hittite, and the Girgashite, and the Amorite, and the Canaanite, and the Perizzite, and the Hivite, and the Jebusite, seven nations much more numerous than you, and more robust than you,

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;

2 and when the Lord your God will have delivered them to you, you shall strike them down unto utter annihilation. You shall not enter into a pact with them, nor shall you show any pity to them.

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:

3 And you shall not associate with them in marriage. You shall not give your daughter to his son, nor accept his daughter for your son.

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

4 For she will seduce your son, so that he will not follow me, and so that he will instead serve foreign gods. And the fury of the Lord will be enraged, and he will quickly destroy you.

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.

5 So instead, you shall do this to them: overturn their altars, and break their statues, and cut down their sacred groves, and burn up their graven images.

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.

6 For you are a holy people to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you so that you would be his particular people out of all the peoples who are upon the earth.

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.

7 It is not because you surpass all the nations in number that the Lord has joined with you and has chosen you, for you are the least numerous of any people.

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:

8 But it is because the Lord has loved you, and has kept his oath, which he swore to your fathers. And he has led you away with a strong hand, and he has redeemed you from the house of servitude, from the hand of Pharaoh, the king of Egypt.

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.

9 And you shall know that the Lord your God himself is a strong and faithful God, preserving his covenant and his mercy for those who love him and those who keep his precepts for a thousand generations,

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;

10 and promptly repaying those who hate him, so as to utterly ruin them, without further delay, quickly rendering to them what they deserve.

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

11 Therefore, keep the precepts and ceremonies as well as the judgments, which I command to you this day, so that you may do them.

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

12 If, after you have heard these judgments, you keep and do them, the Lord your God will also keep his covenant with you and the mercy that he swore to your fathers.

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.

13 And he will love you and multiply you. And he will bless the fruit of your womb, and the fruit of your land: your grain as well as your vintage, oil, and herds, and the flocks of your sheep, upon the land about which he swore to your fathers that he would give it to you.

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.

14 Blessed shall you be among all peoples. No one will be barren among you of either gender, as much among men as among your herds.

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

15 The Lord will take all sickness away from you. And the very grievous infirmities of Egypt, which you have known, he will not bring upon you, but upon your enemies.

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.

16 You shall devour all the peoples, which the Lord your God will deliver to you. Your eye shall not spare them, neither shall you serve their gods, lest they be your ruin.

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.

17 If you say in your heart, ‘These nations are more than I am, so how will I be able to destroy them?’

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

18 do not be apprehensive. Instead, recall what the Lord your God did to Pharaoh and to all the Egyptians:

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

19 the very great plagues, which your eyes saw, and the signs and wonders, and the powerful hand and outstretched arm, by which the Lord your God led you away. So will he do to all the peoples, whom you dread.

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.

20 Moreover, the Lord your God will also send hornets among them, until he destroys and scatters all who have escaped from you, or who have been able to hide.

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.

21 You shall not fear them, for the Lord your God is in your midst: a great and terrible God.

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

22 He himself will consume these nations in your sight, a little at a time, by degrees. You will not be able to destroy them all at once. Otherwise, the wild beasts of the earth might increase against you.

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.

23 And so, the Lord your God will present them in your sight, and you shall slay them until they are thoroughly wiped away.

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

24 And he shall deliver their kings into your hands, and you shall abolish their names from under heaven. No one will be able to withstand you, until you crush them.

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.

25 Their graven images, you shall burn with fire. You shall not covet the silver or gold from which they have been made. And you shall not take for yourself anything from these, lest you offend, because this is an abomination to the Lord your God.

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:

26 Neither shall you carry anything of the idol into your house, lest you become accursed, just as it also is. You shall detest it like dung, and you shall abominate it like defilement and filth, because it is an accursed thing.”

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.