Deuteronomy 7:1-9 ▼

1 When 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—

2 and 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.

3 And 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.

4 For 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.

5 But 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.

6 For 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.

7 Not 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,

8 but 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.

9 And 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.