DEUTERONOMY 7

When Yehowah your God brings you into the land which you are entering to possess, and casts out many nations before you-the Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites-seven nations more numerous and mightier than you, 2 and when Yehowah your God delivers them up before you, and you conquer them, you shall destroy them completely; you shall make no covenant with them, and show no favour to them. 3 You shall make no marriages with them; you shall neither give your daughters to their sons, nor take their daughters for your sons. 4 For they will turn your sons from following me, to serve other gods; so the anger of Yehowah will flare up against you, and destroy you quickly. 5 But you shall deal with them in this way: you shall break down their altars, and break their pillars in pieces, and cut down their asherim, and burn their carved images with fire.

6 For you are a people who are holy to Yehowah your God; Yehowah your God has chosen you to be a people for his own possession, above all the peoples who are on the face of the earth. 7 Yehowah has set his love on you and chosen you, not because you were more in number than other peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples; 8 but it is because Yehowah loves you, and because he would keep the oath which he swore to your fathers, that Yehowah has brought you out with a strong hand, and redeemed you from the home of slavery, from the hands of Pharaoh king of Egypt. 9 And you shall know that Yehowah your God is the only God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and mercy to a thousand generations with those who love him and keep his commandments; 10 but those who hate him he repays to their face, destroying them; he will not hold back from the one who hates him, he will repay him to his face. 11 You shall therefore take care to observe the commandments, the statutes, and the regulations which I command you today.

12 And if you attend to these regulations, and take care to observe them, Yehowah your God will keep with you the covenant and mercy which he promised to your fathers. 13 Then he will love you, bless you, and multiply you; he will also bless the fruit of your womb and the fruit of your ground, your corn and new wine and oil, the offspring of your cattle and the increase of your flocks, in the land which he swore to your fathers to give you. 14 You shall be blessed above all peoples; no male or female shall be barren among you, or among your cattle. 15 And Yehowah will take all disease away from you, and will not put on you any of the sicknesses of Egypt which you know; but he will lay them on all who hate you. 16 And you shall consume all the peoples whom Yehowah your God will deliver up to you; your eye shall not pity them; nor shall you serve their gods, for that will be a snare to you.

17 If you say in your heart, These nations are more numerous than me; how can I dispossess them? 18 you shall not be afraid of them; you shall remember well what Yehowah your God did to Pharaoh and to all Egypt: 19 the great temptations which your eyes saw, and the signs and wonders, and the strong hand and outstretched arm, by which Yehowah your God brought you out; so will Yehowah your God do to all the peoples of whom you are afraid. 20 Moreover, Yehowah your God will send the hornet among them, until those who are left and hide themselves from you have perished. 21 You shall not be in dread of them, for Yehowah your God is in your midst, a great God who is to be feared. 22 Yet Yehowah your God will cast out these nations before you little by little; you cannot make an end of them at once, or else the wild animals would multiply against you. 23 So Yehowah your God will deliver them up before you, and will throw them into great confusion until they are destroyed. 24 And he will deliver their kings into your hands, and you shall make their name perish from under heaven (no man will be able to stand up to you) until you have destroyed them. 25 You shall burn the carved images of their gods in a fire; you shall not covet the silver and gold on them, nor take it for yourselves, or else you will be ensnared by it; for it is an abhorrence to Yehowah your God. 26 For you shall not bring any abhorrent thing into your house, and so become a cursed thing like it; you shall utterly detest and abhor it, for it is a cursed thing.