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,

And when the Lord thy God shall bring thee into the land, into which thou goest to possess it, and shall remove great nations from before thee, the Chettite, and Gergesite, and Amorite, and Chananite, and Pherezite, and Evite, and Jebusite, seven nations [more] numerous 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 the Lord thy God shall deliver them into thy hands, then thou shalt smite them: thou shalt utterly destroy them: thou shalt not make a covenant with them, neither shall ye pity 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.

neither shall ye contract marriages with them: thou shalt not give thy daughter to his son, and thou shalt not take his daughter to thy son.

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 he will draw away thy son from me, and he will serve other gods; and the Lord will be very angry with you, and will soon utterly destroy thee.

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 thus shall ye do to them; ye shall destroy their altars, and shall break down their pillars, and shall cut down their groves, and shall burn with fire the graven images of their gods.

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 thou art a holy people to the Lord thy God; and the Lord thy God chose thee to be to him a peculiar people beyond all nations that [are] upon 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.

It was not because ye are more numerous than all [other] nations that the Lord preferred you, and the Lord made choice of you: for ye are fewer in number than all [other] 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 the Lord loved you, and as keeping the oath which he sware to your fathers, the Lord brought you out with a strong hand, and the Lord redeemed thee from the house of bondage, out of the hand of Pharao 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,

Thou shalt know therefore, that the Lord thy God, he [is] God, a faithful God, who keeps covenant and mercy for them that love him, and for those that keep his commandments to a thousand generations,

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

and who recompenses them that hate him to their face, to destroy them utterly; and will not be slack with them that hate him: he will recompense them to their face.

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.

Thou shalt keep therefore the commands, and the ordinances, and these judgments, which I command thee this day to do.

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 shall come to pass when ye shall have heard these ordinances, and shall have kept and done them, that the Lord thy God shall keep for thee the covenant and the mercy, which he sware 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 love thee, and bless thee, and multiply thee; and he will bless the off-spring of thy body, and the fruit of thy land, thy corn, and thy wine, and thine oil, the herds of thine oxen, and the flocks of thy sheep, on the land which the Lord sware to thy fathers to give to thee.

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.

Thou shalt be blessed beyond all nations; there shall not be among you an impotent or barren one, or among thy cattle.

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 thy God shall remove from thee all sickness; and none of the evil diseases of Egypt, which thou hast seen, and all that thou hast known, will he lay upon thee; but he will lay them upon all that hate thee.

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 thou shalt eat all the spoils of the nations which the Lord thy God gives thee; thine eye shall not spare them, and thou shalt not serve their gods; for this is an offence to thee.

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

But if thou shouldest say in thine heart, This nation [is] greater than I, how shall I be able to destroy them utterly?

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

thou shalt not fear them; thou shalt surely remember all that the Lord thy God did to Pharao and to all the Egyptians:

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 temptations which thine eyes have seen, those signs and great wonders, the strong hand, and the high arm; how the Lord thy God brought thee forth: so the Lord your God will do to all the nations, whom thou fearest in their presence.

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 thy God shall send against them the hornets, until they that are left and they that are hidden from thee be utterly destroyed.

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

Thou shalt not be wounded before them, because the Lord thy God in the midst of thee [is] a great and powerful God.

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.

And the Lord thy God shall consume these nations before thee by little and little: thou shalt not be able to consume them speedily, lest the land become desert, and the wild beasts of the field be multiplied against thee.

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

And the Lord thy God shall deliver them into thy hands, and thou shalt destroy them with a great destruction, until ye shall have utterly destroyed them.

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.

And he shall deliver their kings into your hands, and ye shall destroy their name from that place; none shall stand up in opposition before thee, until thou shalt have utterly destroyed them.

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.

Ye shall burn with fire the graven images of their gods: thou shalt not covet [their] silver, neither shalt thou take to thyself gold from them, lest thou shouldest offend thereby, because it is an abomination to the Lord thy 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 thou shalt not bring an abomination into thine house, so shouldest thou be an accursed thing like it; thou shalt utterly hate it, and altogether abominate it, because it is an accursed thing.