Warnings

1 “aWhen the Lord your God brings you into the land where you are entering to possess it, and clears away many nations before you, the Hittites and the Girgashites and the Amorites and the Canaanites and the Perizzites and the Hivites and the Jebusites, bseven nations greater and stronger than you,

2 and when the Lord your God delivers them before you and you 1defeat them, athen you shall 2utterly destroy them. bYou shall make no covenant with them cand show no favor to them.

3 “Furthermore, ayou shall not intermarry with them; you shall not give your 1daughters to 2their sons, nor shall you take 3their daughters for your 4sons.

4 “For 1they will turn your 2sons away from 3following Me to serve other gods; then the anger of the Lord will be kindled against you and aHe will quickly destroy you.

5 “But thus you shall do to them: ayou shall tear down their altars, and smash their sacred pillars, and hew down their 1Asherim, and burn their graven images with fire.

6 “For you are aa holy people to the Lord your God; the Lord your God has chosen you to be ba people for His 1own possession out of all the peoples who are on the face of the 2earth.

7 “aThe Lord did not set His love on you nor choose you because you were more in number than any of the peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples,

8 but because the Lord loved you and kept the aoath which He swore to your forefathers, bthe Lord brought you out by a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of 1slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.

9 “Know therefore that the Lord your God, aHe is God, bthe faithful God, cwho keeps 1His covenant and 1His lovingkindness to a thousandth generation with those who dlove Him and keep His commandments;

10 but arepays those who hate Him to 1their faces, to destroy 2them; He will not delay 3with him who hates Him, He will repay him to his face.

11 “Therefore, you shall keep the commandment and the statutes and the judgments which I am commanding you today, to do them.