Deuteronomy 7

7 ¹ When your Father brings you into the land that you are entering to take possession of it, and he clears away many nations before you—the Hittites, the Girgashites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, seven nations more numerous and mightier than you— ² and when your Father gives them over to you and you defeat them, you must devote them to complete destruction. Make no covenant with them and show them no mercy.

³ Do not intermarry with them. Do not give your daughters to their sons or take their daughters for your sons, ⁴ for they would turn your children away from following me to serve other gods. Then the anger of our Father would burn against you, and he would quickly destroy you.

⁵ Instead, this is what you must do to them: tear down their altars, smash their sacred pillars, cut down their Asherah poles, and burn their carved images with fire. ⁶ For you are a people holy to your Father. Your Father has chosen you out of all the peoples on the face of the earth to be his people, his treasured possession.

⁷ It was not because you were more numerous than any other people that your Father set his love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples. ⁸ But it was because your Father loves you and is keeping the oath he swore to your fathers that he brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.

⁹ Know therefore that your Father is our Father, the faithful One who keeps his covenant and lovingkindness to a thousand generations with those who love him and keep his commandments, ¹⁰ but who repays to their face those who hate him, by destroying them. He will not be slow to repay to their face the one who hates him.

¹¹ So keep the commandment—the statutes and the rules—that I am commanding you today, and carry them out.

The Father's Covenant Blessings

¹² And because you listen to these rules and keep and do them, your Father will keep with you the covenant and the lovingkindness that he swore to your fathers. ¹³ He will love you, bless you, and multiply you. He will bless the fruit of your womb and the fruit of your ground—your grain, your new wine, and your oil, the increase of your herds and the young of your flock—in the land that he swore to your fathers to give you. ¹⁴ You will be blessed above all peoples. There will not be a barren male or female among you, or among your livestock.

¹⁵ Your Father will turn away from you every sickness, and he will not lay upon you any of the terrible diseases of Egypt that you knew, but he will lay them on all who hate you. ¹⁶ You must destroy all the peoples that your Father gives over to you. Show them no pity, and do not worship their gods, for that would be a snare to you.

¹⁷ If you say in your heart, 'These nations are greater than I; how can I dispossess them?'— ¹⁸ do not be afraid of them. Remember well what your Father did to Pharaoh and to all Egypt: ¹⁹ the great trials that your own eyes saw, the signs and wonders, the mighty hand and outstretched arm by which your Father brought you out. So will your Father do to all the peoples you fear.

²⁰ Moreover, your Father will send the hornet among them, until those who are left and hide themselves from you perish. ²¹ Do not be in dread of them, for your Father is in your midst, a great and awesome our Father.

²² Your Father will clear away these nations before you little by little. You will not be able to finish them off quickly, or the wild animals will grow too numerous for you. ²³ But your Father will give them over to you and throw them into great confusion until they are destroyed. ²⁴ He will give their kings into your hand, and you will blot out their name from under heaven. No one will be able to stand against you until you have destroyed them.

²⁵ Burn the carved images of their gods with fire. Do not covet the silver or gold on them or take it for yourself, or you will be trapped by it, for it is an abomination to your Father. ²⁶ And do not bring a detestable thing into your house, or you, like it, will be doomed to destruction. Utterly detest it and abhor it, for it is marked for destruction.