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.
When Jehovah thy God shall bring thee into the land whither thou goest to possess it, and shall cast out many nations from before thee, the Hittites, and the Girgashites, and the Amorites, and the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites, seven nations greater and mightier than thou,
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 when Jehovah thy God shall give them up before thee and thou shalt smite them, then shalt thou utterly destroy them: thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor shew mercy unto 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.
And thou shalt make no marriages with them: thy daughter thou shalt not give unto his son, nor take his daughter for thy 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 turn away thy son from following me, and they will serve other gods, and the anger of Jehovah will be kindled against you, and he will destroy thee quickly.
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 ye deal with them: ye shall break down their altars, and shatter their statues, and hew down their Asherahs, and burn their graven images with fire.
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 a holy people art thou unto Jehovah thy God: Jehovah thy God hath chosen thee to be unto him a people for a possession, above all the peoples 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.
Not because ye were more in number than all the peoples, hath Jehovah been attached to you and chosen you, for ye are the fewest of all the peoples;
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 Jehovah loved you, and because he would keep the oath which he had sworn unto your fathers, hath Jehovah brought you out with a powerful hand, and redeemed you out of the house of bondage, from the hand of Pharaoh 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.
And thou shalt know that Jehovah thy God, he is God, the faithful God, who keepeth covenant and mercy to a thousand generations with them that love him and keep his commandments;
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 repayeth them that hate him [each] to his face, to cause them to perish: he delayeth not with him that hateth him, he will repay him to his face.
11 “So you must be sure to obey all the commandments and rules and regulations that I am giving to you today.
And thou shalt keep the commandment, and the statutes, and the ordinances, which I command thee this day, to do them.
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, if ye hearken to these ordinances, and keep and do them, that Jehovah thy God will keep with thee the covenant and the mercy which he swore unto thy 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 thee, and bless thee, and multiply thee, and will bless the fruit of thy womb, and the fruit of thy ground, thy corn and thy new wine, and thine oil, the offspring of thy kine, and the increase of thy sheep, in the land which he swore unto thy fathers to give thee.
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.
Thou shalt be blessed above all the peoples; there shall not be male or female barren with thee, or with thy 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 Jehovah will take away from thee all sickness, and none of the evil infirmities of Egypt, which thou knowest, will he put upon thee; but he will lay them upon all them that hate thee.
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 thou shalt consume all the peoples that Jehovah thy God will give up unto thee; thine eye shall not spare them, and thou shalt not serve their gods; for that would be a snare unto thee.
17 “Do not think to yourselves, ‘These people-groups are more numerous/powerful than we are, so we certainly cannot [RHQ] expel them.’
If thou shouldest say in thy heart, These nations are greater than I; how can I dispossess them?
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].
fear them not; remember well what Jehovah thy God did unto Pharaoh, and unto 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 trials which thine eyes saw, and the signs, and the wonders, and the powerful hand, and the stretched-out arm, whereby Jehovah thy God brought thee out: so will Jehovah thy God do unto all the peoples whom thou fearest.
20 Furthermore, he will cause them to become terrified, and he will destroy those who remain alive and run away to hide from you.
Moreover, Jehovah thy God will send the hornet among them, until they that are left, and they that hide themselves from thee, are 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.
Thou shalt not be afraid of them; for Jehovah thy God is in thy midst, a God great and terrible.
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 Jehovah thy God will cast out those nations from before thee by little and little; thou shalt not be able to make an end of them at once, lest the beasts of the field increase upon thee.
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.
But Jehovah thy God will give them up before thee, and will confound them with great consternation, until they are destroyed.
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 will give their kings into thy hand, and thou shalt put out their name from under the heavens; no man shall stand before thee, until thou hast 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].
The graven images of their gods shall ye burn with fire; thou shalt not covet the silver and gold [that is] on them and take it unto thee, lest thou be ensnared therein; for it is an abomination to Jehovah thy 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 thou shalt not bring an abomination into thy house, lest thou be a cursed thing like it: thou shalt utterly detest it, and thou shalt utterly abhor it; for it is a cursed thing.
