Chapter 7

Destruction of the Nations in the Land. ^1 (A)When the Lord, your God, brings you into the land which you are about to enter to possess, and removes many nations before you—the Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites,^(B) seven nations more numerous and powerful than you— ² and when the Lord, your God, gives them over to you and you defeat them, you shall put them under the ban. Make no covenant with them^(C) and do not be gracious to them. ^3 (D)You shall not intermarry with them, neither giving your daughters to their sons nor taking their daughters for your sons. ⁴ For they would turn your sons from following me to serving other gods, and then the anger of the Lord would flare up against you and he would quickly destroy you.

⁵ But this is how you must deal with them:^(E) Tear down their altars, smash their sacred pillars, chop down their asherahs,^[a] and destroy their idols by fire.

^16 (A)But in the cities of these peoples that the Lord, your God, is giving you as a heritage, you shall not leave a single soul alive. ¹⁷ You must put them all under the ban—the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites—just as the Lord, your God, has commanded you, ¹⁸ so that they do not teach you to do all the abominations that they do for their gods, and you thus sin against the Lord, your God.