Deuteronomy 7

God our God will take you into the land that you will soon enter and occupy. As you advance, he will expel these people groups that are more powerful and more numerous than you are. They are the Hittites, the Girgashites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. \*

When God our God enables you to defeat them, you must kill them all. You must make no agreement with them, and you must not act mercifully toward them.

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. \*

If you did that, those people would persuade your children to stop worshiping God and to worship other gods. If that happens, God will be very angry with you, and he will destroy you very quickly.

This is what you must do to those people: Tear down their altars, break apart the stone pillars {that they have dedicated to their gods}, cut down the poles {that they use when they worship the goddess Asherah}, and burn their molded idols. \*

You must do that because you are a group of people who belong only to God our God. He has chosen you from all the peoples in the world to be his own special people. \*

It was not because you were more numerous than any other people group that God chose you. In fact, you are one of the smallest people groups on the earth.

Instead, it is because God loved you and because he wanted to do what he solemnly promised to your ancestors. That is why he rescued you by his great power from slavery in Egypt and from Pharaoh, the king of Egypt. \*

So remember that God is our God. He is faithful to us. He will do what he agreed to do. He will faithfully love forever people who love him and who obey his commandments.

But as for those who hate him, he will pay them back. He will punish them and quickly destroy them.

So you must be sure to obey all the commandments, rules, and decrees that I am giving to you today. \*

If you pay attention to these decrees and always obey them, God our God will do what he has agreed to do for you. He will also faithfully love you, which is what he solemnly promised to your ancestors that he would do.

He will love you and bless you. He will enable you to have many children. He will bless your fields. As a result, 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. \*

He will bless you more than he will bless any other people group. All of you will be able to have children. All of your livestock will be able to produce offspring.

And God will protect you from all illnesses. He will not make you become sick with any of the dreadful diseases that {our ancestors} knew about in Egypt. But, he will make all your enemies sick with them. \*

You must destroy all the peoples that God our God enables you to conquer. Do not act mercifully toward any of them and do not worship their gods. If you do that, it would be like falling into a trap {from which you will never be able to escape}. \*

Do not think to yourselves, ‘These people groups are more numerous than we are. We will never be able to drive them out.’

Do not be afraid of them. Instead, think about what God our God did to the king of Egypt and to all the people whom he {ruled}.

Remember the terrible plagues that your parents saw him inflict on the people of Egypt. Remember the various kinds of miracles that God did in order to bring your families out {of Egypt}. God our God will do the same kind of things to the peoples that you are afraid of now. \*

Furthermore, he will cause them to become terrified. He will destroy those who remain alive and run away to hide from you.

Do not be afraid of those people, because God our God will be with you. He is a great God. He is the one that people are afraid of.

He will gradually expel those people groups. You should not {try to} expel all of them at one time. If you did that, the number of wild animals would quickly increase, {and you would not be able to get rid of them}. \*

Instead, God will enable you to defeat your enemies {one people group at a time}. He will cause them to panic until you have destroyed them.

He will enable you to defeat their kings. After you kill them, people will forget them. No people group will be able to stop you. You will destroy all of them. \*

You must burn the carved figures {that represent} their gods. Do not desire to take the silver or gold {decorations} that are on those idols. If you take them for yourselves, they will be like a trap {to cause you to disobey God}. God hates every part of those idols.

You must not bring any of those disgusting idols into your houses, because if you do that, God will curse you just as he curses them. You must hate and despise those idols, because they are things that God has cursed, and he promises to destroy them. \*