The Chosen People
Deuteronomy 7, verse 1. “Now if the Lord your God brings you into the land you go to inherit, and casts out great nations before your face, the Hittites, the Girgashites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites and the Jebusites, seven nations greater and mightier than you, Deuteronomy 7, verse 2. and the Lord your God delivers them into your hands, you shall strike and utterly destroy them. You shall make no covenant with them nor show them mercy. Deuteronomy 7, verse 3. Nor shall you make marriages with them. You shall not give your daughter to his son, nor take his daughter for your son. Deuteronomy 7, verse 4. For she will turn your son away from Me, and he will serve other gods; so the Lord will be very angry with you and destroy you suddenly. Deuteronomy 7, verse 5. But thus you shall deal with them: you shall destroy their altars, and break down their pillars, and cut down their groves, and burn the carved images of their gods with fire. Deuteronomy 7, verse 6. “For you are a holy people to the Lord your God; the Lord your God chose you to be a people for Himself, special above all the nations on the face of the earth. Deuteronomy 7, verse 7. The Lord did not prefer nor choose you because you were more in number than all the nations, for you are the least of all the nations; Deuteronomy 7, verse 8. but because the Lord loves you, and because He would keep the oath He swore to your fathers, the Lord brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of bondage, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt. Deuteronomy 7, verse 9. Therefore know, the Lord your God, this God, is a faithful God, who keeps covenant and mercy for a thousand generations with those who love Him and keep His commandments; Deuteronomy 7, verse 10. and He repays those who hate Him to their face, to destroy them. He will not be slack with those who hate Him; He will repay them to their face. Deuteronomy 7, verse 11. Therefore, you shall keep the commandments, the ordinances, and these judgments I command you today to do them.
Obedience Brings Blessing
Deuteronomy 7, verse 12. “Then it shall come to pass, when you listen to all these ordinances and keep and do them, the Lord your God will keep with you the covenant and the mercy He swore to your fathers; Deuteronomy 7, verse 13. and He will love you and bless and multiply you; He will also bless the offspring of your womb, and the fruit of your land: your grain, wine, and olive oil, and the herds of your oxen, and the flocks of your sheep, in the land the Lord swore to your fathers to give you. Deuteronomy 7, verse 14. You shall be blessed more than all the nations; there shall not be a childless male or a barren female among you or your cattle. Deuteronomy 7, verse 15. And the Lord will take away from you all sickness, and He will not put on you the evil diseases you saw and knew in Egypt, but will put them on all who hate you. Deuteronomy 7, verse 16. Also you shall eat all the spoils of the nations the Lord your God gives you; your eye shall have no pity on them; nor shall you serve their gods, for that would be a snare to you. Deuteronomy 7, verse 17. “If you should say in your mind, ‘This nation is greater than I; how will I be able to destroy them?’ Deuteronomy 7, verse 18. you shall not be afraid of them, but shall remember well what the Lord your God did to Pharaoh and to all the Egyptians: Deuteronomy 7, verse 19. the great trials your eyes saw, those great signs and wonders, the mighty hand and outstretched arm by which the Lord your God brought you out. So shall the Lord our God do to all the nations of whose face you are afraid. Deuteronomy 7, verse 20. Moreover the Lord your God will send hornets among them, until those who are left, who hide themselves from you, are destroyed. Deuteronomy 7, verse 21. You shall not be terrified of their face; for the Lord your God is among you, a great and powerful God; Deuteronomy 7, verse 22. and the Lord your God will consume those nations before you little by little; you will be unable to destroy them at once, lest the land become a desert and the wild animals increase against you. Deuteronomy 7, verse 23. But the Lord your God will deliver them into your hands and destroy them with a great destruction, until they are destroyed. Deuteronomy 7, verse 24. So He will deliver their kings into your hands, and will destroy their name from that place; no one shall be able to stand against your presence until you destroy them. Deuteronomy 7, verse 25. You shall burn the carved images of their gods with fire; you shall not desire the silver or gold of theirs, nor take it for yourselves, lest you stumble because of it; for it is an abomination to the Lord your God. Deuteronomy 7, verse 26. Nor shall you bring an abomination into your house, lest you be doomed to destruction like it. You shall utterly detest it and utterly abhor it, for it is an accursed thing.