Deuteronomy 7

The AIT Bible

A Holy People Chosen by God

1When Yahweh your God brings you into the land that you are entering to take possession of it, and clears away many nations before you—the Hittite, the Girgashite, the Amorite, the Canaanite, the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite, seven nations more numerous and mightier than you—

2and when Yahweh your God gives them over before you and you strike them down, you shall utterly devote them to destruction. You shall make no covenant with them and show them no mercy.

3You shall not intermarry with them: you shall not give your daughter to his son, nor take his daughter for your son.

4For he would turn your son away from following me, and they would serve other gods; then Yahweh’s anger would burn against you, and he would quickly destroy you.

5But this is what you shall do to them: you shall tear down their altars, smash their sacred pillars, cut down their Asherah poles, and burn their idols with fire.

6For you are a holy people to Yahweh your God; Yahweh your God has chosen you to be his own treasured people out of all the peoples on the face of the earth.

7It was not because you were more numerous than any other people that Yahweh set his affection on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples.

8but because Yahweh loved you and kept the oath that he swore to your fathers, Yahweh brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.

9Know therefore that Yahweh your God is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and loyal love with those who love him and keep his commandments, to a thousand generations,

10but who repays those who hate him to their face, to destroy them. He will not delay; he will repay to his face the one who hates him.

11So you shall keep the commandment and the statutes and the ordinances that I am commanding you today, to do them.

Blessings for Obedience

12And it shall be, because you heed these ordinances and keep and do them, that Yahweh your God will keep with you the covenant and the loyal love that he swore to your fathers.

13He 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 fresh oil, the offspring of your cattle and the young of your flock—in the land that he swore to your fathers to give you.

14You will be blessed above all peoples; there will not be a barren male or female among you, or among your livestock.

15And Yahweh will turn away from you all sickness; none of the evil diseases of Egypt that you knew will he put upon you, but he will inflict them on all who hate you.

16You shall consume all the peoples that Yahweh your God is giving over to you; your eye shall not pity them, and you shall not serve their gods, for that would be a snare to you.

Do Not Fear the Nations

17If you should say in your heart, ‘These nations are more numerous than I; how can I dispossess them?’—

18you shall not be afraid of them. You shall surely remember what Yahweh your God did to Pharaoh and to all Egypt:

19the great trials that your eyes saw, the signs and the wonders, the mighty hand and the outstretched arm by which Yahweh your God brought you out. So will Yahweh your God do to all the peoples of whom you are afraid.

20Moreover, Yahweh your God will send the hornet against them, until those who are left and who hide themselves from before you perish.

21You shall not be in dread of them, for Yahweh your God is in your midst, a great and awesome God.

22Yahweh your God will clear away these nations before you little by little; you will not be able to finish them off quickly, lest the wild beasts of the field multiply against you.

23But Yahweh your God will give them over before you and throw them into great confusion until they are destroyed.

24He will give their kings into your hand, and you will blot out their name from under heaven; no one will be able to stand before you until you have destroyed them.

25The idols of their gods you shall burn with fire. You shall not covet the silver or gold that is on them or take it for yourself, lest you be ensnared by it, for it is an abomination to Yahweh your God.

26And you shall not bring an abomination into your house and become devoted to destruction like it. You shall utterly detest it and utterly abhor it, for it is devoted to destruction.

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