Deuteronomy 7
1 The Lord your God is going to lead you into the land that you are taking over in order to own it, and will drive out ahead of you many other nations: the Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites, seven nations that are larger and stronger 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 When the Lord your God has handed them over to you to defeat them, then you must set them apart for destruction. Don't make any peace treaty with them and don't show them any mercy.
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 Don't intermarry with them. Don't let your daughters marry their sons or have their daughters marry your sons,
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 because they will lead your children away from following me to worship other gods. Then the Lord will be angry with you, and he will quickly come and kill 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 On the contrary, this is what you are to do to them: tear down their altars, knock down their idolatrous pillars, cut down their Asherah poles, and burn down their idols.
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 the Lord your God's holy people. The Lord your God has chosen you to be his own special people, valued above all other peoples on 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 wasn't because there were so many of you that the Lord loved you more than any other nation, in fact he chose you though there were so few of you.
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 However, because the Lord loved you and kept the promise he gave to your forefathers, He led you out by his power and rescued you from the prison-house of slavery, from the rule of Pharaoh, 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 That's why you can be sure that the Lord your God is the true God, the faithful God who keeps his agreement based on trustworthy love to a thousand generations of those who love him and keep his commandments.
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 But he doesn't hesitate to pay back those who hate him by destroying them.
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 So keep the commandments and rules and regulations that I'm giving you to follow today.
Thou shalt keep therefore the commands, and the ordinances, and these judgments, which I command thee this day to do.
12 If you listen to these regulations and are careful to observe them, then the Lord your God will keep his agreement and the trustworthy love that he promised to your forefathers.
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 He will love you and bless you and give you many descendants. He will bless your children and the crops your land produces—your grain, new wine, and olive oil, the calves of your cattle herds and the lambs of your flocks—in the land that he promised your forefathers to give 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 You will be blessed more than any other nation; none of you will be childless, and none of your livestock will fail to have young.
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 keep you from having any kind of sickness. He will not let you have any of the terrible diseases you saw in Egypt, but he will let all who hate you suffer from them.
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 are to destroy all the nations the Lord your God hands over to you. Don't look on them with sympathy. Don't worship their gods, for that will end up being a trap to you.
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 You may say to yourselves, “These nations are stronger than us. How on earth can we drive them out?”
But if thou shouldest say in thine heart, This nation [is] greater than I, how shall I be able to destroy them utterly?
18 But don't be afraid of them. Make sure you remember what the Lord your God did to Pharaoh and the whole of Egypt:
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 amazing tests you witnessed, the signs and miracles, the great power and incredible strength the Lord your God used to lead you out. The Lord your God is going to deal with all the nations you're currently afraid of in the same way.
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 On top of this, the Lord your God will send the hornet against them until anyone who has survived and anyone hiding from you have been killed.
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 Don't be frightened of these nations, for the Lord your God, who is with you, is a powerful and awesome 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 The Lord your God will drive out these nations ahead of you in stages. You won't be able to get rid of them all at the same time, or you'd be overwhelmed by wild animals.
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 But the Lord your God will hand them over to you and throw them into a terrible panic, until they are wiped out.
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 He will give their defeated kings to you to be killed, and even their names will be forgotten. No one will be able to withstand you; you will completely destroy 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 You must burn the idols of their god. Don't desire the silver and gold that covers them. Don't take it or otherwise it will be a trap for you because the Lord your God detests anything to do with idols.
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 Don't bring any detestable idol into your house, otherwise you will treated just like it—by being set apart for destruction. You are to treat idols as totally despicable, and stay far away from them, because they are set apart for destruction.
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.
