7:1 When the Lord your God brings you to the land that you are going to occupy and forces out many nations before you – Hittites, 1 Girgashites, 2 Amorites, 3 Canaanites, 4 Perizzites, 5 Hivites, 6 and Jebusites, 7 seven 8 nations more numerous and powerful than you – 7:2 and he 9 delivers them over to you and you attack them, you must utterly annihilate 10 them. Make no treaty 11 with them and show them no mercy! 7:3 You must not intermarry with them. Do not give your daughters to their sons or take their daughters for your sons, 7:4 for they will turn your sons away from me to worship other gods. Then the anger of the Lord will erupt against you and he will quickly destroy you. 7:5 Instead, this is what you must do to them: You must tear down their altars, shatter their sacred pillars, 12 cut down their sacred Asherah poles, 13 and burn up their idols. 7:6 For you are a people holy 14 to the Lord your God. He 15 has chosen you to be his people, prized 16 above all others on the face of the earth.
7:7 It is not because you were more numerous than all the other peoples that the Lord favored and chose you – for in fact you were the least numerous of all peoples. 7:8 Rather it is because of his 17 love 18 for you and his faithfulness to the promise 19 he solemnly vowed 20 to your ancestors 21 that the Lord brought you out with great power, 22 redeeming 23 you from the place of slavery, from the power 24 of Pharaoh king of Egypt. 7:9 So realize that the Lord your God is the true God, 25 the faithful God who keeps covenant faithfully 26 with those who love him and keep his commandments, to a thousand generations, 7:10 but who pays back those who hate 27 him as they deserve and destroys them. He will not ignore 28 those who hate him but will repay them as they deserve! 7:11 So keep the commandments, statutes, and ordinances that I today am commanding you to do.