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(A)You shall not intermarry with them, neither giving your daughters to their sons nor taking their daughters for your sons. 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.

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

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Footnotes

  1. 7:5 Sacred pillars…asherahs: cut or uncut stones and wooden poles or trees (cf. 16:21) that had some cultic function. Fairly common religious artifacts, their association with the non-Israelite cults of Canaan and perhaps with Canaanite gods and goddesses, specifically the goddess Asherah, led to their condemnation in the Deuteronomic reform and possibly earlier.

Do not intermarry with them.(A) Do not give your daughters to their sons or take their daughters for your sons, for they will turn your children away from following me to serve other gods,(B) and the Lord’s anger will burn against you and will quickly destroy(C) you. This is what you are to do to them: Break down their altars, smash their sacred stones, cut down their Asherah poles[a](D) and burn their idols in the fire.(E)

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Footnotes

  1. Deuteronomy 7:5 That is, wooden symbols of the goddess Asherah; here and elsewhere in Deuteronomy