Driving Out the Nations

7 When the Lord your God brings you into the land you are entering to possess^(A) and drives out before you many nations^(B)—the Hittites,^(C) Girgashites,^(D) Amorites,^(E) Canaanites, Perizzites,^(F) Hivites^(G) and Jebusites,^(H) seven nations larger and stronger than you— ² and when the Lord your God has delivered^(I) them over to you and you have defeated them, then you must destroy^(J) them totally.^[a](K) Make no treaty^(L) with them, and show them no mercy.^{(M) 3} Do not intermarry with them.^(N) Do not give your daughters to their sons or take their daughters for your sons, ⁴ for they will turn your children away from following me to serve other gods,^(O) and the Lord’s anger will burn against you and will quickly destroy^(P) you. ⁵ This is what you are to do to them: Break down their altars, smash their sacred stones, cut down their Asherah poles^[b](Q) and burn their idols in the fire.^(R)

² Destroy completely all the places on the high mountains,^(A) on the hills and under every spreading tree,^(B) where the nations you are dispossessing worship their gods. ³ Break down their altars, smash^(C) their sacred stones and burn^(D) their Asherah^(E) poles in the fire; cut down the idols of their gods and wipe out their names^(F) from those places.

² He went up to the temple of the Lord with the people of Judah, the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the priests and the prophets—all the people from the least to the greatest. He read^(A) in their hearing all the words of the Book of the Covenant,^(B) which had been found in the temple of the Lord. ³ The king stood by the pillar^(C) and renewed the covenant^(D) in the presence of the Lord—to follow^(E) the Lord and keep his commands, statutes and decrees with all his heart and all his soul, thus confirming the words of the covenant written in this book. Then all the people pledged themselves to the covenant.

⁴ The king ordered Hilkiah the high priest, the priests next in rank and the doorkeepers^(F) to remove^(G) from the temple of the Lord all the articles made for Baal and Asherah and all the starry hosts. He burned them outside Jerusalem in the fields of the Kidron Valley and took the ashes to Bethel. ⁵ He did away with the idolatrous priests appointed by the kings of Judah to burn incense on the high places of the towns of Judah and on those around Jerusalem—those who burned incense^(H) to Baal, to the sun and moon, to the constellations and to all the starry hosts.^{(I) 6} He took the Asherah pole from the temple of the Lord to the Kidron Valley^(J) outside Jerusalem and burned it there. He ground it to powder^(K) and scattered the dust over the graves^(L) of the common people.^(M)