Casting out the Nations
1 When the Lord your God brings you into the land where you are going, to possess it, and casts out many nations before you—the Hittite, the Girgashite, the Amorite, the Canaanite, the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite—seven nations greater and mightier than you; 2 and when the Lord your God delivers them up before you, and you strike them down, then you shall utterly destroy them. You shall make no covenant with them, nor show mercy to them.
3 You shall not intermarry with them. You shall not give your daughters to their sons, nor shall you take their daughters for your sons, 4 for that would turn your sons away from following me, that they may serve other gods. So the Lord’s anger would be kindled against you, and he would quickly destroy you. 5 But you shall deal with them like this: you shall break down their altars, dash their pillars in pieces, cut down their Asherah poles, 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 other people on the face of the earth.
7 The Lord did not set his love on you nor choose you because you were greater in number than any other people, for you were the least of all peoples, 8 but because the Lord loves you, and because he desires to keep the oath which he swore to your fathers, the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of bondage, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.
9 Know therefore that the Lord your God himself is the Lord, the faithful God, who keeps covenant and loving kindness with those who love him and keep his commandments to a thousand generations, 10 and for those who hate him he repays 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 commandments, the statutes, and the ordinances which I am giving you today, and do them.
The Lord’s Promises
12 It shall happen, because you listen to these ordinances, obeying and doing them, that the Lord your God will keep his covenant with you and his loving kindness for you which he swore to your fathers. 13 He will love you, 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 will be blessed above all peoples. There will not be a male or female barren among you, or among your livestock. 15 The Lord will take away from you all sickness, and he will put none of the terrible diseases of Egypt, which you know, 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. You shall not serve their gods, for that would be a snare to you. 17 Even if you say in your heart, “These nations are more numerous than I. How can I dispossess them?” 18 you shall not be afraid of them. You shall remember well what the Lord your God did to Pharaoh and to all Egypt: 19 the great trials which your eyes saw, the signs, the wonders, 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 hide themselves and perish from before you. 21 You shall not be afraid of them, for the Lord your God is among you, a great and awesome God. 22 The Lord your God will cast out those nations before you little by 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 are destroyed.
24 He will deliver their kings into your hand, and you shall make their name perish from under the heavens. No one will be able to stand before you until you have destroyed them. 25 You shall burn the engraved images of their gods with fire. You shall not covet the silver or the gold that is on them, nor take it for yourself, lest you be snared in it, 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. You shall utterly abhor it, for it is a devoted thing.