1WHEN the LORD your God shall bring you into the land which you are entering to possess, and has destroyed many nations before you, the Hittites, the Girgasites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, seven nations greater and mightier than yourselves;
2And when the LORD your God shall deliver them before you, and you shall defeat them; then you shall utterly destroy them; you shall make no covenant with them, nor show mercy to them;
3Neither shall you make marriages with them; you shall not give your daughters to their sons, nor take their daughters for your sons,
4That they may not turn away your sons from following me, and serve other gods; and then the anger of the LORD would kindle against you and destroy you quickly.
5But thus shall you deal with them: you shall destroy their altars and break down their statues and cut down their ornaments and burn their graven images with fire.
6For you are a holy people to the LORD your God; the LORD your God has chosen you to be a beloved people to himself, above all people that are upon the face of the earth. 7It was not because you were more in number than any other peoples that the LORD was delighted in you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples; 8But it was because the LORD loved you, and because he would keep the oaths which he had sworn to your fathers, that the LORD brought you out with a mighty hand, and delivered you out of the house of bondage from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt, 9That you may know therefore that the LORD your God, he is God, the faithful God, who keeps covenant and mercy with those that love him and keep his commandments to a thousand generations, 10And repays those that hate him during their lifetime; he requites them that he may destroy them; he shall not be slack to those that hate him, but he repays them during their lifetime. 11You shall therefore keep the commandments and the statutes and the judgments which I command you this day, and do them. 12Wherefore if you hearken to these judgments, and keep them and do them, the LORD your God shall keep with you the covenant and the mercy which he swore to your fathers; 13And he will love you and bless you and multiply you; he will also bless the fruit of your womb and the fruit of your land, your grain and your wine and your oil, the increase of your cattle and the flocks of your sheep, in the land which he swore to your fathers to give you. 14You shall be blessed above all peoples; there shall not be male or female barren among you or among your cattle. 15And the LORD will take away from you all sickness; and all evil diseases of the Egyptians, which you know, he will not bring upon you; but will bring them upon your enemies. 16And you shall consume all the peoples that the LORD your God shall deliver to you; your eye shall have no pity upon them; neither shall you serve their gods; for they are a snare to you. 17If you shall say in your heart, These nations are greater than I; how will I be able to destroy them? 18You shall not be afraid of them; but you shall remember what the LORD your God did to Pharaoh and to all Egypt; 19The great trials which your eyes saw, the signs, the wonders, the mighty hand, and the outstretched arm, whereby the LORD your God brought you out; so shall the LORD your God do to all the peoples of whom you are afraid. 20Moreover the LORD your God will send raiders among them, until they that are left and hide themselves from you, are destroyed. 21You shall not be afraid of them, for the LORD your God is among you, a great and terrible God. 22And the LORD your God will destroy those nations from before you little by little; you will not be able to destroy them quickly, lest the wild beasts increase upon you. 23But the LORD your God shall deliver them to you, and shall smite them with a great destruction, until they are destroyed. 24And he shall deliver their kings into your hands, and you shall destroy their name from under heaven; there shall no man be able to stand before you, until you have destroyed them. 25The graven images of their gods you shall burn with fire; you shall not covet the silver or the gold that is on them, nor take it for yourselves, lest you become unclean with it; for it is an abomination before the LORD your God. 26Neither shall you bring an abomination into your house, lest you be a cursed thing like it; but you shall utterly detest it, and you shall utterly abhor it; for it is a cursed thing. Holy Bible From The Ancient Eastern Texts: Aramaic Of The Peshitta by George M. Lamsa (1933) |