Deuteronomy: Chapter 7
1. When The Lord your God shall bring you into the
land where you go to possess it, and shall cast out many nations before you, the
Hittite, and the Girgashite, and the Amorite, and the Canaanite, and the
Perizzite, and the Hivite, and the Jebusite, seven nations greater and mightier
than you;
2. and when The Lord your God shall deliver them up
before you, and you shall strike them; then you shall utterly destroy them: you
shall make no covenant with them, nor show mercy to them;
3. neither shall you make marriages with them; your
daughter you shall not give to his son, nor his daughter shall you take to your
son.
4. For he will turn away your son from following me,
that they may serve other gods: so will the anger of The Lord be kindled against
you, and he will destroy you quickly.
5. But thus shall you deal with them: you shall
break down their altars, and dash in pieces their pillars, and hew down their
Asherim, and burn their engraved images with fire.
6. For you are a holy people to The Lord your God: The
Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for his own possession, above all
peoples who are on the face of the earth.
7. The Lord didn't set his love on you, nor choose
you, because you were more in number than any people; for you were the fewest of
all peoples:
8. but because The Lord loves you, and because he
would keep the oath which he swore to your fathers, has The Lord brought you
out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you out of the house of bondage, from the
hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.
9. Know therefore that The Lord your God, he is God,
the faithful God, who keeps covenant and loving kindness with them who love him
and keep his commandments to a thousand generations,
10. and repays those who hate him to their face, to
destroy them: he will not be slack to him who hates him, he will repay him to
his face.
11. You shall therefore keep the commandment, and the
statutes, and the ordinances, which I command you this day, to do them.
12. It shall happen, because you listen to these
ordinances, and keep and do them, that The Lord your God will keep with you the
covenant and the loving kindness which he swore to your fathers:
13. and he will love you, and bless you, and multiply
you; he will also bless the fruit of your body and the fruit of your ground,
your grain and your new wine and your oil, the increase of your livestock and
the young of your flock, in the land which he swore to your fathers to give
you.
14. You shall be blessed above all peoples: there
shall not be male or female barren among you, or among your livestock.
15. The Lord will take away from you all sickness; and
none of the evil diseases of Egypt, which you know, he will put on you, but
will lay them on all those who hate you.
16. You shall consume all the peoples whom The Lord
your God shall deliver to you; your eye shall not pity them: neither shall you
serve their gods; for that will be a snare to you.
17. If you shall say in your heart, These nations are more
than I; how can I dispossess them?
18. you shall not be afraid of them: you shall well
remember what The Lord your God did to Pharaoh, and to all Egypt;
19. the 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: so shall The Lord your God do to all the
peoples of whom you are afraid.
20. Moreover The Lord your God will send the hornet
among them, until those who are left, and hide themselves, perish from before
you.
21. You shall not be scared of them; for The Lord your
God is in the midst of you, a great and awesome God.
22. The Lord your God will cast out those nations
before you by little and little: you may not consume them at once, lest the
animals of the field increase on you.
23. But The Lord your God will deliver them up before
you, and will confuse them with a great confusion, until they be destroyed.
24. He will deliver their kings into your hand, and
you shall make their name to perish from under the sky: there shall no man be
able to stand before you, until you have destroyed them.
25. The engraved images of their gods shall you burn
with fire: you shall not covet the silver or the gold that is on them, nor take
it to you, lest you be snared therein; for it is an abomination to The Lord
your God.
26. You shall not bring an abomination into your
house, and become a devoted thing like it: you shall utterly detest it, and
you shall utterly abhor it; for it is a devoted thing.