1   When the Lord your God brings you into the land which you are entering to occupy and drives out many nations before you—Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, and

Primary charge of Moses to the people Jebusites, 2   seven nations more numerous and powerful than you—when the Lord your God delivers them into your power and you defeat them, you must put them to death. You must not make a treaty with them or spare them. 3   You must not intermarry with them, neither giving your daughters to their sons nor taking their daughters for your sons; if you do, 4   they will draw your sons away from the Lord ^note and make them worship other gods. Then the Lord will be angry with you and will quickly destroy you. 5   But this is what you must do to them: pull down their altars, break their sacred pillars, hack down their sacred poles ^note and destroy their idols by fire, 6   for you are a people holy to the Lord your God; the Lord your God chose you out of all nations on earth to be his special possession.

7   It was not because you were more numerous than any other nation that the Lord cared for you and chose you, for you were the smallest of all nations; 8   it was because the Lord loved you and stood by his oath to your forefathers, that he brought you out with his strong hand and redeemed you from the land of slavery, from the power of Pharaoh king of Egypt. 9   Know then that the Lord your God is God, the faithful God; with those who love him and keep his commandments he keeps covenant and faith for a thousand generations, 10   but those who defy him and show their hatred for him he repays with destruction: he will not be slow to requite any who so hate him.

11   You are to observe these commandments, statutes, and laws which I give you this day, and keep them.

12   If you listen to these laws and are careful to observe them, then the Lord your God will observe the sworn covenant he made with your forefathers and will keep faith with you. 13   He will love you, bless you and cause you to increase. He will bless the fruit of your body and the fruit of your land, your corn and new wine and oil, the offspring of your herds, and of your lambing flocks, in the land which he swore to your forefathers to give you. 14   You shall be blessed above every other nation; neither among your people nor among your cattle shall there be impotent male or barren female. 15   The Lord will take away all sickness from you; he will not bring upon you any of the foul diseases of Egypt which you know so well, but will bring them upon all your enemies. 16   You shall devour all the nations which the Lord your God is giving over to you. Spare none of them, and do not worship their gods; that is the snare which awaits you.

17   You may say to yourselves, ‘These nations outnumber us, how can we drive them out?’ 18   But you need have no fear of them; only remember what the Lord your God did to Pharaoh and to the whole of Egypt, 19   the great challenge which you yourselves witnessed, the signs and portents,

Primary charge of Moses to the people the strong hand and the outstretched arm by which the Lord your God brought you out. He will deal thus with all the nations of whom you are afraid. 20   He will also spread panic among them until all who are left or have gone into hiding perish before you. 21   Be in no dread of them, for the Lord your God is in your midst, a great and terrible god. 22   He will drive out these nations before you little by little. You will not be able to exterminate them quickly, for fear the wild beasts become too numerous for you. 23   The Lord your God will deliver these nations over to you and will throw them into great panic in the hour of their destruction. 24   He will put their kings into your hands, and you shall wipe out their name from under heaven. When you destroy them, no man will be able to withstand you. 25   Their idols you shall destroy by fire; you must not covet the silver and gold on them and take it for yourselves, or you will be ensnared by it; for these things are abominable to the Lord your God. 26   You must not introduce any abominable idol into your houses and thus bring yourselves under solemn ban along with it. You shall hold it loathsome and abominable, for it is forbidden under the ban.

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