7 1 The Israelites may make no covenant with the Gentiles. 5 They must destroy the idols. 8 The election dependeth on the free love of God. 19 The experience of the power of God ought to confirm us. 25 To avoid all occasion of idolatry.
1 When the Lord thy God shall bring thee into the land whither thou goest to possess it, (A)and shall root out many nations before thee: the Hittites, and the Girgashites, and the Amorites, and the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites, seven nations greater and mightier than thou,
2 And the Lord thy God shall give them [a]before thee, then thou shalt smite them: thou shalt utterly destroy them: thou shalt make no (B)covenant with them, nor have compassion on them,
3 Neither shalt thou make marriages with them, neither give thy daughter unto his son, nor take his daughter unto thy son.
4 For [b]they will cause thy son to turn away from me, and to serve other gods: then will the wrath of the Lord wax hot against you, and destroy thee suddenly.
5 But thus ye shall deal with them, [c]Ye shall overthrow their altars, and break down their pillars, and ye shall cut down their groves, and burn their graven images with fire.
6 (C)For thou art an holy people unto the Lord thy God, (D)the Lord thy God hath chosen thee, to be a precious people unto himself, above all people that are upon the earth.
7 The Lord did not set his love upon you, nor chose you, because ye were more in number than any people: for ye were the fewest of all people:
8 But because the Lord [d]loved you, and because he would keep the oath which he had sworn unto your fathers, the Lord hath brought you out by a mighty hand, and delivered you out of the house of bondage from the hand of Pharaoh King of Egypt.
9 That thou mayest know, [e]that the Lord thy God, he is God, the faithful God, which keepeth covenant and mercy unto them that love him and keep his commandments, even to a thousand generations,
10 And rewardeth [f]them to their face that hate him, to bring them to destruction: he will not defer to reward him that hateth him, to his face.
11 Keep thou therefore the commandments, and the ordinances, and the laws, which I command thee this day to do them.
12 ¶ For if ye hearken unto these laws, and observe and do them, then the Lord thy God shall keep with thee the covenant, and the [g]mercy which he sware unto thy fathers.
13 And he will love thee, and bless thee, and multiply thee: he will also bless the fruit of thy womb, and the fruit of thy land, thy corn and thy wine, and thine oil, and the increase of thy kine, and the flocks of thy sheep in the land, which he sware unto thy fathers to give thee.
14 Thou shalt be blessed above all people: (E)there shall be neither male nor female barren among you, nor among your cattle.
15 Moreover, the Lord will take away from thee all infirmities, and will put none of the evil diseases of (F)Egypt (which thou knowest) upon thee, but will send them upon all that hate thee.
16 Thou shalt therefore consume all people which the Lord thy God shall give thee: [h]thine eye shall not spare them, neither shalt thou serve their gods, for that shall be thy (G)destruction.
17 If thou say in thine heart, These nations are more than I, how can I cast them out?
18 Thou shalt not fear them, but remember what the Lord thy God did unto Pharaoh, and unto all Egypt:
19 The great [i]tentations which thine eyes saw, and the signs and wonders, and the mighty hand and stretched out arm, whereby the Lord thy God brought thee out: so shall the Lord thy God do unto all the people, whose face thou fearest.
20 (H)Moreover, the Lord thy God will send [j]hornets among them until they that are left, and hide themselves from thee, be destroyed.
21 Thou shalt not fear them: for the Lord thy God is among you, a God mighty and dreadful.
22 And the Lord thy God will root out these nations before thee by little and little: thou mayest not consume them at once, lest the [k]beasts of the field increase upon thee.
23 But the Lord thy God shall give them before thee, and shall destroy them with a mighty destruction, until they be brought to naught.
24 And he shall deliver their Kings into thine hand, and thou shalt destroy their name from under heaven: there shall no man be able to stand before thee, until thou hast destroyed them.
25 The graven images of their gods shall ye (I)burn with fire, and (J)covet not the silver and gold, that is on them, nor take it unto thee, lest thou [l]be snared therewith: for it is an abomination before the Lord thy God.
26 Bring not therefore abomination into thine house, lest thou be accursed like it, but utterly abhor it, and count it most abominable: for it is (K)accursed.
Footnotes
- Deuteronomy 7:2 Into thy power.
- Deuteronomy 7:4 Or, any of them.
- Deuteronomy 7:5 God would have his service pure without all idolatrous ceremonies and superstitions, Deut. 22:3.
- Deuteronomy 7:8 Freely, finding no cause in you more than in others so to do.
- Deuteronomy 7:9 And so put difference between him and idols.
- Deuteronomy 7:10 Meaning, manifestly, or in this life.
- Deuteronomy 7:12 This covenant is grounded upon his free grace: therefore in recompensing their obedience, he hath respect to his mercy and not to their merits.
- Deuteronomy 7:16 We ought not to be merciful, where God commandeth severity.
- Deuteronomy 7:19 Or, plagues, or trials, Deut. 29:3; as Exod. 15:25 and Exod. 16:4.
- Deuteronomy 7:20 There is not so small a creature, which I will not arm to fight on thy side against them.
- Deuteronomy 7:22 So that it is your commodity that God accomplish not his promise so soon as you would wish.
- Deuteronomy 7:25 And be enticed to idolatry.
Cross references
- Deuteronomy 7:1 : Deut. 31:8
- Deuteronomy 7:2 : Exod. 23:32; Exod. 34:12
- Deuteronomy 7:6 : Deut. 14:2; Deut. 26:18,19
- Deuteronomy 7:6 : Exod. 19:5; 2 Pet. 2:9
- Deuteronomy 7:14 : Exod. 23:26
- Deuteronomy 7:15 : Exod. 9:14; Exod. 15:26
- Deuteronomy 7:16 : Exod. 23:33
- Deuteronomy 7:20 : Exod. 23:28; Josh. 24:12
- Deuteronomy 7:25 : Deut. 12:3; Exod. 23:24
- Deuteronomy 7:25 : Josh. 7:1,21
- Deuteronomy 7:26 : Deut. 13:17