Deuteronomy 7

Instructions for Israel to Destroy Idolatrous Nations and Remain Faithful to God

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1 When the LORD your God shall bring you into the land where you go to possess it, and has cast out many nations before you, 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 you;
2 And when the LORD your God shall deliver them before you; you shall smite them, and 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 they 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 destroy you suddenly.
5 But thus shall you deal with them; you shall destroy their altars, and break down their images, and cut down their groves, and burn their graven images with fire.
6 For you are an holy people to the LORD your God: the LORD your God has chosen you to be a special people to himself, above all people that are on the face of the earth.
7 The LORD did not set his love on you, nor choose you, because you were more in number than any people; for you were the fewest of all people:
8 But because the LORD loved you, and because he would keep the oath which he had sworn to your fathers, has the LORD brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you out of the house of slaves, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.
9 Know therefore that the LORD your God, he is God, the faithful God, which keeps covenant and mercy with them that love him and keep his commandments to a thousand generations;
10 And repays them that hate him to their face, to destroy them: he will not be slack to him that hates him, he will repay him to his face.
11 You shall therefore keep the commandments, and the statutes, and the judgments, which I command you this day, to do them. ¶
12 Why it shall come to pass, if you listen to these judgments, and keep, and do them, that the LORD your God shall keep to you the covenant and the mercy 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 womb, and the fruit of your land, your corn, and your wine, and your oil, the increase of your cows, and the flocks of your sheep, in the land which he swore to your fathers to give you.
14 You shall be blessed above all people: there shall not be male or female barren among you, or among your cattle.
15 And the LORD will take away from you all sickness, and will put none of the evil diseases of Egypt, which you know, on you; but will lay them on all them that hate you.
16 And you shall consume all the people which the LORD your God shall deliver you; your eye shall have no pity on 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: but shall well remember what the LORD your God did to Pharaoh, and to all Egypt;
19 The great temptations which your eyes saw, and the signs, and the wonders, and the mighty hand, and the stretched out arm, whereby the LORD your God brought you out: so shall the LORD your God do to all the people of whom you are afraid.
20 Moreover the LORD your God will send the hornet among them, until they that are left, and hide themselves from you, be destroyed.
21 You shall not be affrighted at them: for the LORD your God is among you, a mighty God and terrible.
22 And the LORD your God will put out those nations before you by little and little: you may not consume them at once, lest the beasts of the field increase on you.
23 But the LORD your God shall deliver them to you, and shall destroy them with a mighty destruction, until they be destroyed.
24 And he shall deliver their kings into your hand, and you shall destroy their name from under heaven: there shall no man be able to stand before you, until you have destroyed them.
25 The graven images of their gods shall you burn with fire: you shall not desire the silver or 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 Neither shall you bring an abomination into your house, lest you be a cursed thing like it: but you shall utterly detest it, and you shall utterly abhor it; for it is a cursed thing.
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