Drive Out the Nations

1When YHWH your God brings you into the land that you are going in to possess, and He has cast out many nations before you, the Hittite, and the Girgashite, and the Amorite, and the Canaanite, and the Perizzite, and the Hivite, and the Jebusite—seven nations greater and mightier than you— 2and YHWH your God delivers them over to you, then you shall strike them down—you must devote them to complete destruction.† You shall not make a covenant† with them and you shall not show mercy to them.

3and you shall not join in marriage with them; your daughter you shall not give to their son, and their daughter you shall not take for your son. 4For they will turn away your sons from following Me, and they will serve other gods; and the anger of YHWH will be kindled against you⁺, and He will destroy you swiftly.

5But rather thus you⁺ shall deal with them: Their altars you⁺ shall break down, and their pillars you⁺ shall smash, and their Asherah poles you⁺ shall cut down, and their carved images you⁺ shall burn with the fire. 6For a holy people you are to YHWH your God; YHWH your God has chosen you to be for Himself a special treasure, a people above all the peoples that are on the face of the earth.

7Not because you⁺ were more numerous than any other of the peoples did YHWH set His love on you⁺ and choose you⁺; for you⁺ were the least of all the peoples, 8but it is from the love of YHWH for you⁺ and from His keeping of the oath that He swore to your⁺ fathers, that YHWH has brought you⁺ out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.

9And you shall know that YHWH your God, He is God, the faithful God, keeping the covenant of loving devotion for those loving Him and keeping His commandments for a thousand generations. 10And He repays those who hate Him to their faces, to destroy them. He delays not to him who hates Him—to his face He will repay him.

11And you shall keep the commandment and the statutes and the ordinances that I command you today to do.

The Promises of God
(Exodus 23:20–33)

12And it shall come to pass, because you⁺ listen to these ordinances and keep and do them, that YHWH your God will keep with you the covenant and the loving devotion that He swore to your fathers. 13And He has loved you and blessed you and multiplied you, and He has blessed the fruit of your womb and the fruit of your land, your grain and your new wine and your oil, the increase of your cattle, and the offspring of your flock in the land that He swore to your fathers to give to you. 14Blessed you shall be above all peoples; there shall not be among you a barren man or barren woman—or among your livestock.

15And YHWH has taken away from you all sickness, and all the terrible diseases of Egypt that you have known He does not put on you, and He has put them on all those hating you. 16And you shall destroy all the peoples whom YHWH your God will deliver over to you. Your eye shall not have pity on them, nor shall you serve their gods, for it is a snare to you.

17If you should say in your heart, “These nations are greater than I; how can I dispossess them?” 18You shall not be afraid of them; you must surely remember what YHWH your God did to Pharaoh and to all Egypt: 19The great trials that your eyes saw, and the signs, and the wonders, and the mighty hand and the outstretched arm by which YHWH your God brought you out. So shall do YHWH your God to all the peoples of whom you are afraid, before their faces.

20Moreover, YHWH your God will send the hornet among them, until those who are left and who hide themselves from you have perished. 21You shall not be terrified of them, for YHWH your God is among you—a God great and awesome.

22And YHWH your God has cast out these nations before you little by little; you are not able to destroy them at once, lest the beasts of the field become too numerous for you. 23And YHWH your God will deliver them over to you, and He will confuse them with great confusion until they are destroyed. 24And He will deliver their kings into your hand, and you will destroy their name from under the heavens; no man shall be able to stand against you until you have destroyed them.

25The carved images of their gods you⁺ shall burn with the fire; you shall not covet the silver or gold that is on them, nor take it for yourselves, lest you be ensnared by it; for it is an abomination to YHWH your God. 26and you shall not bring an abomination into your house and become devoted to destruction like it. You are to utterly detest it and thoroughly abhor it, for it is devoted to destruction.