Deuteronomy 7

Warnings

1“1When the Lord your God brings you into the land where you are entering to take possession of it, and He drives away many nations from before you, the Hittites, the Girgashites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, 2seven nations greater and mightier than you, 2and when the Lord your God turns them over to you and you 3defeat them, 4you shall 5utterly destroy them. 6You shall not make a covenant with them 7nor be gracious to them. 3Furthermore, 8you shall not intermarry with them: you shall not give your 9daughters to 10their sons, nor shall you take 11their daughters for your 12sons. 4For 13they will turn your 14sons away from 15following Me, and they will serve other gods; then the anger of the Lord will be kindled against you and 16He will quickly destroy you. 5But this is what you shall do to them: 17you shall tear down their altars, smash their memorial stones, cut their 18Asherim to pieces, and burn their carved images in the fire. 6For you are 19a holy people to the Lord your God; the Lord your God has chosen you to be 20a people for His personal possession out of all the peoples who are on the face of the 21earth.

7“22The Lord did not 23make you His beloved nor choose you because you were greater in number than any of the peoples, since you were the fewest of all peoples, 8but because the Lord loved you and kept the 24oath which He swore to your forefathers, 25the Lord brought you out by a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of 26slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt. 9Know therefore that the Lord your God, 27He is God, 28the faithful God, 29who keeps 30His covenant and 31His faithfulness to a thousand generations for those who 32love Him and keep His commandments; 10but He 33repays those who hate Him to 34their faces, to eliminate 35them; He will not hesitate toward him who hates Him, He will repay him to his face. 11Therefore, you shall keep the commandment, the statutes, and the judgments which I am commanding you today, to do them.

Promises of God

12“36Then it shall come about, because you listen to these judgments and keep and do them, that the Lord your God will keep 37His covenant with you and 38His faithfulness which He swore to your forefathers. 13And He will 39love you, bless you, and 40make you numerous; He will also bless the fruit of your womb and the fruit of your ground, your grain, your new wine, and your oil, the newborn of your cattle and the offspring of your flock, 41in the land which He swore to your forefathers to give you. 14You shall be blessed above all peoples; there will be no sterile male or 42infertile female among you or among your cattle. 15And 43the Lord will remove from you all sickness; and He will not inflict upon you any of the harmful diseases of Egypt which you have known, but He will give them to all who hate you. 16You shall consume all the peoples whom the Lord your God will turn over to you; 44your eye shall not pity them, nor shall you serve their gods, for that would be 45a snare to you.

17“If you say in your heart, ‘These nations are greater than I; how can I 46dispossess them?’ 18you are not to be afraid of them; you shall 47remember well what the Lord your God did to Pharaoh and to all Egypt: 1948the great trials which your eyes saw and the signs and the wonders, and the mighty hand and the outstretched arm by which the Lord your God brought you out. The Lord your God will do the same to all the peoples of whom you are afraid. 20Indeed, the Lord your God will send 49the hornet against them, until those who are left and hide themselves from you perish. 21You are not to be terrified of them, because 50the Lord your God is in your midst, 51a great and awesome God. 2252And the Lord your God will drive away these nations from you little by little; you will not be able to put an end to them quickly, otherwise the 53wild animals would become too numerous for you. 2354But the Lord your God will turn them over to you, and will 55throw them into great confusion until they are destroyed. 2456And He will hand over their kings to you, so that you will eliminate their name from under heaven; 57no one will be able to stand against you until you have destroyed them. 25The carved images of their gods you are to 58burn with fire; you shall 59not covet the silver or the gold that is on them, nor take it for yourselves, or you will be 60trapped by it; for it is an 61abomination to the Lord your God. 26And you shall not bring an abomination into your house and become 62designated for destruction, like it; you are to utterly detest it, and you are to utterly loathe it, for it is something designated for destruction.