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.
“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 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.
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 Don't intermarry with them. Don't let your daughters marry their sons or have their daughters marry 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 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.
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 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.
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 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.
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 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 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 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.
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 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.
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 But he doesn't hesitate to pay back those who hate him by destroying them.
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 commandments and rules and regulations that I'm giving you to follow today.
“So you must be sure to obey all the commandments and rules and regulations that I am giving to you today.
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.
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 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.
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 be blessed more than any other nation; none of you will be childless, and none of your livestock will fail to have young.
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 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 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 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.
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 You may say to yourselves, “These nations are stronger than us. How on earth can we drive them out?”
“Do not think to yourselves, ‘These people-groups are more numerous/powerful than we are, so we certainly cannot [RHQ] expel them.’
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:
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 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.
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 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.
Furthermore, he will cause them to become terrified, and he will destroy those who remain alive and run away to hide from you.
21 Don't be frightened of these nations, for the Lord your God, who is with you, is a powerful and awesome God.
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 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.
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 hand them over to you and throw them into a terrible panic, until they are wiped out.
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 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.
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 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.
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 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.
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.”
