Keluaran 34:11

34:11 “Obey ¹  what I am commanding you this day. I am going to drive out ²  before you the Amorite, the Canaanite, the Hittite, the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite.

Ulangan 7:2

7:2 and he ³  delivers them over to you and you attack them, you must utterly annihilate ⁴  them. Make no treaty ⁵  with them and show them no mercy!

Yosua 1:7

1:7 Make sure you are ⁶  very strong and brave! Carefully obey ⁷  all the law my servant Moses charged you to keep! ⁸  Do not swerve from it to the right or to the left, so that you may be successful ⁹  in all you do. ¹⁰ 

¹ tn The covenant duties begin with this command to “keep well” what is being commanded. The Hebrew expression is “keep for you”; the preposition and the suffix form the ethical dative, adding strength to the imperative.

² tn Again, this is the futur instans use of the participle.

³ tn Heb “the Lord your God.” The pronoun has been used in the translation for stylistic reasons to avoid redundancy.

⁴ tn In the Hebrew text the infinitive absolute before the finite verb emphasizes the statement. The imperfect has an obligatory nuance here. Cf. ASV “shalt (must NRSV) utterly destroy them”; CEV “must destroy them without mercy.”

⁵ tn Heb “covenant” (so NASB, NRSV); TEV “alliance.”

⁶ tn Or “Only be.”

⁷ tn Heb “so you can be careful to do.” The use of the infinitive לִשְׁמֹר (lishmor, “to keep”) after the imperatives suggests that strength and bravery will be necessary for obedience. Another option is to take the form לִשְׁמֹר as a vocative lamed (ל) with imperative (see Isa 38:20 for an example of this construction), which could be translated, “Indeed, be careful!”

⁸ tn Heb “commanded you.”

⁹ tn Heb “be wise,” but the word can mean “be successful” by metonymy.

¹⁰ tn Heb “in all which you go.”