A Chosen People

¹“When the eLord your God brings you into the land that you are entering to take possession of it, and clears away many nations before you, fthe Hittites, the Girgashites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, seven nations gmore numerous and mightier than you, ²hand when the Lord your God gives them over to you, and you defeat them, then you must idevote them to complete destruction.1 jYou shall make no covenant with them and show no mercy to them. ³kYou shall not intermarry with them, giving your daughters to their sons or taking their daughters for your sons, ⁴for they would turn away your sons from following me, to serve other gods. lThen the anger of the Lord would be kindled against you, and he would destroy you mquickly. ⁵But thus shall you deal with them: nyou shall break down their altars and dash in pieces their npillars and chop down their nAsherim and oburn their carved images with fire.

⁶“For pyou are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you to be pa people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth. ⁷It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the Lord set his love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples, ⁸but qit is because the Lord loves you and is keeping rthe oath that he swore to your fathers, that the Lord has 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 the Lord your God is God, sthe faithful God twho keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, to a thousand generations, ¹⁰and urepays to their face those who hate him, by destroying them. vHe will not be slack with one who hates him. He will repay him to his face. ¹¹wYou shall therefore be careful to do the commandment and the statutes and the rules that I command you today.

¹²x“And because you listen to these rules and keep and do them, the Lord your God will keep with you ythe covenant and the steadfast love that he swore to your fathers. ¹³He will zlove you, bless you, and multiply you. aHe will also bless the fruit of your womb and the fruit of your ground, your grain and your 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. ¹⁴You shall be blessed above all peoples. bThere shall not be male or female barren among you or among your livestock. ¹⁵And the Lord will take away from you all sickness, and none of the evil cdiseases of Egypt, which you knew, will he inflict on you, but he will lay them on all who hate you. ¹⁶And dyou shall consume all the peoples that the Lord your God will give over to you. eYour eye shall not pity them, neither shall you serve their gods, for that would be fa snare to you.

¹⁷“If you say in your heart, ‘These nations are greater than I. How can I dispossess them?’ ¹⁸gyou shall not be afraid of them but you shall hremember what the Lord your God did to Pharaoh and to all Egypt, ¹⁹the great trials that your eyes saw, ithe signs, the wonders, the mighty hand, and the outstretched arm, by which the Lord your God brought you out. So will the Lord your God do to all the peoples of whom you are afraid. ²⁰Moreover, jthe Lord your God will send hornets among them, until those who are left and hide themselves from you are destroyed. ²¹You shall not be in dread of them, for the Lord your God is kin your midst, la great and awesome God. ²²mThe Lord your God will clear away these nations before you little by little. You may not make an end of them at once,2 lest the wild beasts grow too numerous for you. ²³nBut the Lord your God will give them over to you and throw them into great confusion, until they are destroyed. ²⁴And ohe will give their kings into your hand, and you shall pmake their name perish from under heaven. qNo one shall be able to stand against you until you have destroyed them. ²⁵The carved images of their gods ryou shall burn with fire. You sshall not covet the silver or the gold that is on them or take it for yourselves, lest you be tensnared by it, for it is an abomination to the Lord your God. ²⁶And you shall not bring an abominable thing into your house and become devoted to destruction3 like it. You shall utterly detest and abhor it, ufor it is devoted to destruction.