Exodus 23:20–33

²⁰‘Lo, I am sending a messenger before thee to keep thee in the way, and to bring thee in unto the place which I have prepared; ²¹be watchful because of his presence, and hearken to his voice, rebel not against him, for he beareth not with your transgression, for My name is in his heart; ²²for, if thou diligently hearken to his voice, and hast done all that which I speak, then I have been at enmity with thine enemies, and have distressed those distressing thee.

²³‘For My messenger goeth before thee, and hath brought thee in unto the Amorite, and the Hittite, and the Perizzite, and the Canaanite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite, and I have cut them off.

²⁴‘Thou dost not bow thyself to their gods, nor serve them, nor do according to their doings, but dost utterly devote them, and thoroughly break their standing pillars.

²⁵‘And ye have served Jehovah your God, and He hath blessed thy bread and thy water, and I have turned aside sickness from thine heart; ²⁶there is not a miscarrying and barren one in thy land; the number of thy days I fulfil: ²⁷My terror I send before thee, and I have put to death all the people among whom thou comest, and I have given the neck of all thine enemies unto thee.

²⁸‘And I have sent the hornet before thee, and it hath cast out the Hivite, the Canaanite, and the Hittite, from before thee; ²⁹I cast them not out from before thee in one year, lest the land be a desolation, and the beast of the field hath multiplied against thee; ³⁰little by little I cast them out from before thee, till thou art fruitful, and hast inherited the land.

³¹‘And I have set thy border from the Red Sea, even unto the sea of the Philistines, and from the wilderness unto the River: for I give into your hand the inhabitants of the land, and thou hast cast them out from before thee; ³²thou dost not make a covenant with them, and with their gods; ³³they do not dwell in thy land, lest they cause thee to sin against Me when thou servest their gods, when it becometh a snare to thee.’

Chapter 24