Seven nations, and no mercy
1When Yahweh your God brings you into the land you are entering to possess, and drives out many nations before you — the Hittites, the Girgashites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, seven nations greater and stronger than you — 2and when Yahweh your God has delivered them over to you and you have struck them down, you must devote them to complete destruction. Make no covenant with them and show them no mercy. 3Do not intermarry with them. Do not give your daughter to their son, and do not take their daughter for your son, 4for they will turn your children away from following me to serve other gods, and Yahweh’s anger will burn against you and destroy you quickly. 5This is what you are to do to them instead: tear down their altars, smash their sacred pillars, cut down their Asherah poles, and burn their carved images in the fire. 6For you are a people holy to Yahweh your God. Yahweh your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on the face of the earth to be his own treasured people. 7It was not because you were more numerous than any other people that Yahweh set his heart on you and chose you — you were the smallest of all peoples — 8but because Yahweh loved you and kept the oath he swore to your fathers. That is why Yahweh brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt. 9Know, then, that Yahweh your God is God — the faithful God, who keeps his covenant and steadfast love to a thousand generations with those who love him and keep his commandments, 10but who repays those who hate him to their face, destroying them. He will not delay with anyone who hates him — he will repay him to his face. 11So keep the commandment, the statutes, and the ordinances I am giving you today, and do them.
Blessing for keeping the covenant
12If you listen to these ordinances, keep them, and do them, then Yahweh your God will keep for you the covenant and the steadfast love he swore to your fathers. 13He will love you, bless you, and multiply you. He will bless the fruit of your womb and the fruit of your land — your grain, your new wine, your oil, the young of your herds, and the lambs of your flocks — in the land he swore to your fathers to give you. 14You will be blessed above all peoples; no man or woman among you will be childless, nor any of your livestock. 15Yahweh will keep every illness away from you. He will not bring on you any of the terrible diseases of Egypt that you experienced, but he will bring them on all who hate you. 16You must destroy all the peoples Yahweh your God is giving over to you. Show them no pity, and do not serve their gods, for that would be a trap for you. 17If you say to yourself, “These nations are stronger than I am — how can I drive them out?” 18do not be afraid of them. Remember well what Yahweh your God did to Pharaoh and to all Egypt — 19the great trials your own eyes saw, the signs and wonders, the mighty hand and outstretched arm with which Yahweh your God brought you out. Yahweh your God will do the same to all the peoples you now fear. 20Yahweh your God will also send hornets among them, until even those who are left, hiding from you, have perished. 21Do not be terrified of them, for Yahweh your God is present among you, a great and awesome God.
A conquest little by little
22Yahweh your God will drive out these nations before you little by little. You will not be able to finish them off quickly, or the wild animals would multiply against you. 23But Yahweh your God will deliver them over to you, throwing them into great confusion until they are destroyed. 24He will give their kings into your hand, and you will wipe out their names from under heaven. No one will be able to stand against you until you have destroyed them. 25You are to burn the carved images of their gods in the fire. Do not covet the silver or gold on them and take it for yourself, or you will be ensnared by it, for it is detestable to Yahweh your God. 26Do not bring anything detestable into your house, or you yourself will be set apart for destruction like it. Utterly detest it and abhor it, for it is set apart for destruction.
