Deuteronomy 7

1 And when the Lord your God shall bring you into the land, into which you go to possess it, and shall remove great nations from before you, the Chettite, and Gergesite, and Amorite, and Chananite, and Pherezite, and Evite, and Jebusite, seven nations [more] numerous and stronger than you,

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.

2 and the Lord your God shall deliver them into your hands, then you shall strike them: you shall utterly destroy them: you shall not make a covenant with them, neither shall you pity them:

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.

3 neither shall you contract marriages with them: you shall not give your daughter to his son, and you shall not take his daughter to your son.

Don't intermarry with them. Don't let your daughters marry their sons or have their daughters marry your sons,

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

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.

5 But thus shall you do to them; you 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.

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.

6 For you are a holy people to the Lord your God; and the Lord your God chose you to be to him a peculiar people beyond all nations that [are] upon the face of the earth.

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.

7 It was not because you are more numerous than all [other] nations that the Lord preferred you, and the Lord made choice of you: for you are fewer in number than all [other] nations.

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.

8 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 you from the house of bondage, out of the hand of Pharao king of Egypt.

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.

9 You shall know therefore, that the Lord your 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,

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.

10 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.

But he doesn't hesitate to pay back those who hate him by destroying them.

11 You shall keep therefore the commands, and the ordinances, and these judgments, which I command you this day to do.

So keep the commandments and rules and regulations that I'm giving you to follow today.

12 And it shall come to pass when you shall have heard these ordinances, and shall have kept and done them, that the Lord your God shall keep for you the covenant and the mercy, which he sware to your fathers.

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.

13 And he will love you, and bless you, and multiply you; and he will bless the off-spring of your body, and the fruit of your land, your corn, and your wine, and your oil, the herds of your oxen, and the flocks of your sheep, on the land which the Lord sware to your fathers to give to you.

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.

14 You shall be blessed beyond all nations; there shall not be among you an impotent or barren one, or among your cattle.

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.

15 And the Lord your God shall remove from you all sickness; and none of the evil diseases of Egypt, which you have seen, and all that you have known, will he lay upon you; but he will lay them upon all that hate you.

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.

16 And you shall eat all the spoils of the nations which the Lord your God gives you; your eye shall not spare them, and you shall not serve their gods; for this is an offense to you.

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.

17 But if you should say in your heart, This nation [is] greater than I, how shall I be able to destroy them utterly?

You may say to yourselves, “These nations are stronger than us. How on earth can we drive them out?”

18 you shall not fear them; you shall surely remember all that the Lord your God did to Pharao and to all the Egyptians:

But don't be afraid of them. Make sure you remember what the Lord your God did to Pharaoh and the whole of Egypt:

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

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.

20 And the Lord your God shall send against them the hornets, until they that are left and they that are hidden from you be utterly destroyed.

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.

21 You shall not be wounded before them, because the Lord your God in the midst of you [is] a great and powerful God.

Don't be frightened of these nations, for the Lord your God, who is with you, is a powerful and awesome God.

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

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.

23 And the Lord your God shall deliver them into your hands, and you shall destroy them with a great destruction, until you shall have utterly destroyed them.

But the Lord your God will hand them over to you and throw them into a terrible panic, until they are wiped out.

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

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.

25 You shall burn with fire the graven images of their gods: you shall not covet [their] silver, neither shall you take to yourself gold from them, lest you should offend thereby, because it is an abomination to the Lord your God.

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.

26 And you shall not bring an abomination into your house, so should you be an accursed thing like it; you shall utterly hate it, and altogether abominate it, because it is an accursed thing.

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.