Deuteronomy 7
He Did Not Choose You Because You Were Many
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Separation from the Canaanite Nations
7:1When the Lord your God brings you into the land you are entering to inherit and removes great nations before you—the Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites, seven nations numerous and stronger than you—
7:2and the Lord your God hands them over to you and you strike them down, you must make them disappear completely. Make no covenant with them and show them no mercy.
7:3Do not intermarry with them. Do not give your daughter to his son or take his daughter for your son,
7:4for he will turn your son away from Me, and he will worship other gods. Then the Lord will be provoked to wrath against you, and He will destroy you quickly.
7:5Instead, do this to them: tear down their altars, shatter their pillars, cut down their sacred groves, and burn the carved images of their gods.
Israel Consecrated
7:6For you are a holy people to the Lord your God. The Lord your God chose you as His specially possessed people from all the nations on the face of the earth.
7:7The Lord did not prefer you and choose you because you were more numerous than all the nations, for you were the fewest of all nations.
7:8Rather, because the Lord loved you and kept the oath He swore to your fathers, the Lord brought you out with a mighty hand and an uplifted arm and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from Pharaoh king of Egypt's hand.
7:9Know that the Lord your God is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and mercy with those who love Him and keep His commandments for a thousand generations,
7:10but repays those who hate to their face, to destroy them. He does not delay with those who hate; He repays them to their face.
7:11Keep these commandments, ordinances, and judgments I command you today, and practice them.
7:12When you listen to all these ordinances, keep them, and practice them, the Lord your God will keep with you the covenant and mercy He swore to your fathers.
7:13He will love you, bless you, and multiply you. He will bless the offspring of your womb and the fruit of your land, your grain, wine, and oil, your cattle herds and sheep flocks, on the land the Lord swore to your fathers to give you.
7:14You will be blessed above all peoples. There will be no infertile male or female among you or among your livestock.
7:15The Lord will remove every infirmity from you. He will put none of Egypt's grievous diseases that you saw and knew upon you, but will put them on all who hate you.
Encouragement Against Fear
7:16You shall consume all the spoils of the nations the Lord your God gives you. Your eye shall not spare them, and you shall not worship their gods, for that would be a stumbling block to you.
7:17If you say in your mind: This nation is more numerous than I; how can I destroy them?
7:18do not fear them. Remember well what the Lord your God did to Pharaoh and all the Egyptians:
7:19the great trials your eyes saw, the signs and those great wonders, the mighty hand and uplifted arm with which the Lord your God brought you out. The Lord our God will do the same to all the nations you fear.
7:20The Lord your God will also send hornets against them until those left and those hiding from you are wiped out.
7:21You shall not be wounded before them, for the Lord your God is among you, a great and mighty God.
7:22The Lord your God will consume these nations before you little by little. You will not be able to finish them quickly, lest the land become deserted and wild animals multiply against you.
7:23The Lord your God will hand them over to you and destroy them with great destruction until He annihilates them.
7:24He will hand their kings over to you, and their name will perish from that place. No one will stand before you until you destroy them.
7:25Burn the carved images of their gods. Do not covet silver or gold from them or take it for yourself, lest you stumble because of it, for it is an abomination to the Lord your God.
7:26Do not bring an abomination into your house, or you will become a thing under the ban like it. Reject it utterly and abhor it utterly, for it is a thing under the ban.
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Saints Translation · Liturgical reading edition · V1 · working draft awaiting specialist review.