Deuteronomy 7:1-13 ▼

1 |When the LORD your God brings you into the land that you are entering to possess, he will drive out many nations before you: the Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites, seven nations who are more numerous and stronger than you.

2 So when the LORD your God delivers them to you and you have defeated them, then utterly destroy them. You are not to make any covenant with them nor be gracious to them.

3 You are not to intermarry with them. You are not to give your daughters to their sons nor take their daughters for your sons,

4 because they will turn your children from me to serve other gods so that the LORD's anger blazes against you and swiftly destroys you by fire.

5 This is what you are to do to them: tear down their altars, break their pillars, cut down their ritual pillars, and burn their carved idols in fire,

6 because you are a holy people to the LORD your God. The LORD your God chose you to be his people, his treasured possession from all the peoples on the face of the earth.|

7 |It wasn't because you were more numerous than other people of the earth that the LORD committed himself to you and chose you. In fact, you were the least numerous of all the peoples.

8 But the LORD loved you and kept his oath that he made to your ancestors. The LORD brought you out with great power from slavery, from the control of Pharaoh, king of Egypt.

9 Know that the LORD your God is God, the trusted God who faithfully keeps his covenant to the thousandth generation of those who love him and obey his commands.

10 But for the one who hates him, he will repay him by destroying him. He will not delay dealing with someone who hates him.

11 Therefore keep the commands, decrees, and the ordinances that I am instructing you to obey today.|

12 |If you pay attention to these laws and obey them, then the LORD your God will continue his covenant of gracious love with you that he promised with an oath to your ancestors.

13 He'll love you and increase your numbers. He'll bless the fruit of your womb, the fruit of your land (the grain, new wine, and oil), the offspring of your herds, and the lambs of your flock, in the land that the LORD promised your ancestors he would give you.