Deuteronomy 7:1-8 ▼

1 WHEN the LORD your God shall bring you into the land which you are entering to possess, and has destroyed many nations before you, the Hittites, the Girgasites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, seven nations greater and mightier than yourselves;

2 And when the LORD your God shall deliver them before you, and you shall defeat them; then you shall utterly destroy them; you shall make no covenant with them, nor show mercy to them;

3 Neither shall you make marriages with them; you shall not give your daughters to their sons, nor take their daughters for your sons,

4 That they may not turn away your sons from following me, and serve other gods; and then the anger of the LORD would kindle against you and destroy you quickly.

5 But thus shall you deal with them: you shall destroy their altars and break down their statues and cut down their ornaments and burn their graven 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 beloved people to himself, above all people that are upon the face of the earth.

7 It was not because you were more in number than any other peoples that the LORD was delighted in you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples;

8 But it was because the LORD loved you, and because he would keep the oaths which he had sworn to your fathers, that the LORD brought you out with a mighty hand, and delivered you out of the house of bondage from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt,