Deuteronomy 7–8

Chapter 7

¹When Jehovah thy God shall bring thee into the land whither thou goest to possess it, and shall cast out many nations from before thee, the Hittites, and the Girgashites, and the Amorites, and the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites, seven nations greater and mightier than thou, ²and when Jehovah thy God shall give them up before thee and thou shalt smite them, then shalt thou utterly destroy them: thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor shew mercy unto them. ³And thou shalt make no marriages with them: thy daughter thou shalt not give unto his son, nor take his daughter for thy son; ⁴for he will turn away thy son from following me, and they will serve other gods, and the anger of Jehovah will be kindled against you, and he will destroy thee quickly. ⁵But thus shall ye deal with them: ye shall break down their altars, and shatter their statues, and hew down their Asherahs, and burn their graven images with fire. ⁶For a holy people art thou unto Jehovah thy God: Jehovah thy God hath chosen thee to be unto him a people for a possession, above all the peoples that are upon the face of the earth. ⁷Not because ye were more in number than all the peoples, hath Jehovah been attached to you and chosen you, for ye are the fewest of all the peoples; ⁸but because Jehovah loved you, and because he would keep the oath which he had sworn unto your fathers, hath Jehovah brought you out with a powerful hand, and redeemed you out of the house of bondage, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt. ⁹And thou shalt know that Jehovah thy God, he is God, the faithful •God, who keepeth covenant and mercy to a thousand generations with them that love him and keep his commandments; ¹⁰and repayeth them that hate him each to his face, to cause them to perish: he delayeth not with him that hateth him, he will repay him to his face. ¹¹And thou shalt keep the commandment, and the statutes, and the ordinances, which I command thee this day, to do them.

¹²And it shall come to pass, if ye hearken to these ordinances, and keep and do them, that Jehovah thy God will keep with thee the covenant and the mercy which he swore unto thy fathers; ¹³and he will love thee, and bless thee, and multiply thee, and will bless the fruit of thy womb, and the fruit of thy ground, thy corn and thy new wine, and thine oil, the offspring of thy kine, and the increase of thy sheep, in the land which he swore unto thy fathers to give thee. ¹⁴Thou shalt be blessed above all the peoples; there shall not be male or female barren with thee, or with thy cattle; ¹⁵and Jehovah will take away from thee all sickness, and none of the evil infirmities of Egypt, which thou knowest, will he put upon thee; but he will lay them upon all them that hate thee. ¹⁶And thou shalt consume all the peoples that Jehovah thy God will give up unto thee; thine eye shall not spare them, and thou shalt not serve their gods; for that would be a snare unto thee. ¹⁷If thou shouldest say in thy heart, These nations are greater than I; how can I dispossess them? ¹⁸fear them not; remember well what Jehovah thy God did unto Pharaoh, and unto all the Egyptians; ¹⁹the great trials which thine eyes saw, and the signs, and the wonders, and the powerful hand, and the stretched-out arm, whereby Jehovah thy God brought thee out: so will Jehovah thy God do unto all the peoples whom thou fearest. ²⁰Moreover, Jehovah thy God will send the hornet among them, until they that are left, and they that hide themselves from thee, are destroyed. ²¹Thou shalt not be afraid of them; for Jehovah thy God is in thy midst, a •God great and terrible. ²²And Jehovah thy God will cast out those nations from before thee by little and little; thou shalt not be able to make an end of them at once, lest the beasts of the field increase upon thee. ²³But Jehovah thy God will give them up before thee, and will confound them with great consternation, until they are destroyed. ²⁴And he will give their kings into thy hand, and thou shalt put out their name from under the heavens; no man shall stand before thee, until thou hast destroyed them. ²⁵The graven images of their gods shall ye burn with fire; thou shalt not covet the silver and gold that is on them and take it unto thee, lest thou be ensnared therein; for it is an abomination to Jehovah thy God. ²⁶And thou shalt not bring an abomination into thy house, lest thou be a cursed thing like it: thou shalt utterly detest it, and thou shalt utterly abhor it; for it is a cursed thing.

Chapter 8

¹Every commandment which I command thee this day shall ye take heed to do, that ye may live, and multiply, and enter in and possess the land which Jehovah swore unto your fathers. ²And thou shalt remember all the way which Jehovah thy God led thee these forty years in the wilderness, to humble thee, and to prove thee, to know what was in thy heart, whether thou wouldest keep his commandments or not. ³And he humbled thee, and suffered thee to hunger, and fed thee with the manna, which thou hadst not known, and which thy fathers knew not; that he might make thee know that man doth not live by bread alone, but by everything that goeth out of the mouth of Jehovah doth man live. ⁴Thy clothing grew not old upon thee, neither did thy foot swell, these forty years. ⁵And know in thy heart that, as a man chasteneth his son, so Jehovah thy God chasteneth thee; ⁶and thou shalt keep the commandments of Jehovah thy God, to walk in his ways, and to fear him. ⁷For Jehovah thy God bringeth thee into a good land, a land of water-brooks, of springs, and of deep waters, that gush forth in the valleys and hills; ⁸a land of wheat, and barley, and vines, and fig-trees, and pomegranates; a land of olive-trees and honey; ⁹a land wherein thou shalt eat bread without scarceness, where thou shalt lack nothing; a land whose stones are iron, and out of whose mountains thou wilt dig copper.

¹⁰And thou shalt eat and be filled, and shalt bless Jehovah thy God for the good land which he hath given thee. ¹¹Beware that thou forget not Jehovah thy God, in not keeping his commandments, and his ordinances, and his statutes, which I command thee this day; ¹²lest when thou hast eaten and art full, and hast built and inhabited fine houses, ¹³and thy herds and thy flocks multiply, and thy silver and thy gold is multiplied, and all that thou hast is multiplied, ¹⁴then thy heart be lifted up, and thou forget Jehovah thy God, who brought thee forth out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage; ¹⁵who led thee through the great and terrible wilderness, a wilderness of fiery serpents, and scorpions, and drought, where there is no water; who brought thee forth water out of the rock of flint; ¹⁶who fed thee in the wilderness with manna, which thy fathers knew not, that he might humble thee, and that he might prove thee, to do thee good at thy latter end; ¹⁷—and thou say in thy heart, My power and the might of my hand has procured me this wealth. ¹⁸But thou shalt remember Jehovah thy God, that it is he who giveth thee power to get wealth, that he may establish his covenant which he swore unto thy fathers, as it is this day. ¹⁹And it shall be, if thou do at all forget Jehovah thy God, and go after other gods, and serve them, and bow down to them, I testify against you this day that ye shall utterly perish. ²⁰As the nations which Jehovah is causing to perish before you, so shall ye perish; because ye would not hearken unto the voice of Jehovah your God.