Deuteronomy 7
1 “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.
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,
2 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.
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:
3 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.
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.
4 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.
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.
5 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.
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.
6 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.
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.
7 “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.
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.
8 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.
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.
9 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.
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,
10 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.
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 you must be sure to obey all the commandments and rules and regulations that I am giving to you today.
You shall keep therefore the commands, and the ordinances, and these judgements, which I command you this day to do.
12 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.
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.
13 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.
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.
14 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.
You shall be blessed beyond all nations; there shall not be amongst you an impotent or barren one, or amongst your cattle.
15 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.
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.
16 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].
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 offence to you.
17 “Do not think to yourselves, ‘These people-groups are more numerous/powerful than we are, so we certainly cannot [RHQ] expel them.’
But if you should say in your heart, This nation [is] greater than I, how shall I be able to destroy them utterly?
18 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].
you shall not fear them; you shall surely remember all that the Lord your God did to Pharao and to all the Egyptians:
19 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.
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.
20 Furthermore, he will cause them to become terrified, and he will destroy those who remain alive and run away to hide from you.
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.
21 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.
You shall not be wounded before them, because the Lord your God in the midst of you [is] a great and powerful God.
22 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].
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.
23 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.
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.
24 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.
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.
25 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].
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.
26 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.”
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.
