2. When the Lord your God gives them to you and you defeat them, destroy every one of them because they have been claimed by the Lord. Don’t make any treaties with them or show them any mercy.
3. Never marry any of them. Never let your daughters marry their sons or your sons marry their daughters.
4. These people will turn your children away from me to worship other gods. Then the Lord will get very angry with you and will quickly destroy you.
5. But this is what you must do to these people: Tear down their altars, smash their sacred stones, cut down their poles dedicated to the goddess Asherah, and burn their idols.
6. You are a holy people, who belong to the Lord your God. He chose you to be his own special possession out of all the nations on earth.
7. The Lord set his heart on you and chose you, even though you didn’t outnumber all the other people. You were the smallest of all nations.
8. You were chosen because the Lord loved you and kept the oath he swore to your ancestors. So he used his mighty hand to bring you out. He freed you from slavery under Pharaoh (the king of Egypt).
9. Keep in mind that the Lord your God is ⌊the only⌋ God. He is a faithful God, who keeps his promise and is merciful to thousands of generations of those who love him and obey his commands.
10. But he sends destruction to pay back everyone who hates him. He never takes long to pay back anyone who hates him.
11. So obey the commands, laws, and rules I’m giving you today.
12. If you listen to these rules and faithfully obey them, the Lord your God will keep his promise to you and be merciful to you, as he swore to your ancestors.
13. He will love you, bless you, and increase the number of your descendants. He will bless you with children. He will bless your land with produce: grain, new wine, and olive oil. He will bless your herds with calves, and your flocks with lambs and kids. This will all happen in the land the Lord will give you, as he swore to your ancestors.
14. You will be blessed more than any other people. Your men and women will be able to have children, and your animals will be able to have offspring.
15. The Lord will keep you from having any kind of illness. He will not strike you with any of the terrible diseases you experienced in Egypt. Instead, he will strike all those who hate you.
16. You must destroy all the people the Lord your God hands over to you. Have no pity on them, and never worship their gods, because they will be a trap for you.
17. You may say to yourselves, “These nations outnumber us. How can we force them out?”
18. Don’t be afraid of them. Remember what the Lord your God did to Pharaoh and all of Egypt.