Deuteronomy 7
New Catholic Bible
Chapter 7
Destroying the Nations.[a] 1 When the Lord, your God, has brought you into the land that you are entering to take possession of and he has driven out many nations before you, the Hittites, the Girgashites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, seven nations in all, each larger and stronger than you are 2 and when the Lord, your God, will have delivered them over to you and you will have defeated them, you are to wipe them out. You are not to make a covenant with them or show them any mercy. 3 [b]Do not intermarry with them. Do not give your daughters to their sons nor take their daughters for your sons. 4 They would turn your sons away from serving me to serve other gods and the anger of the Lord would be kindled against you and destroy you in an instant.
5 This is what you are to do to them: you are to destroy their altars, tear down their sacred images, cut down their sacred groves, and burn up their idols in fire. 6 You are a people holy to the Lord, your God. The Lord, your God, has chosen you from among all the peoples in the world to be his own, a treasured possession. 7 The Lord did not delight in you because you were more numerous than these other peoples, for you are actually the least numerous of all people. 8 It was because the Lord loved you and was keeping the promise that he had sworn to your fathers that the Lord brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the hand of Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, from the land of your slavery.
9 Keep in mind, therefore, that the Lord, your God, is God. He is a faithful God who keeps his covenant of mercy to the thousandth generation toward those who love him and observe his commandments. 10 But upon those who hate him, he will avenge himself face to face, wiping them out. He will not delay in avenging himself face to face with those who hate him.[c] 11 Therefore, be careful to observe the commandments, statutes, and decrees that I give you today.
12 Blessings of the Covenant. If you obey these decrees and carefully observe them, then the Lord, your God, will preserve his covenant of mercy with you, as he promised to your forefathers. 13 He will love you and bless you and multiply you. He will bless the fruit of your womb and the crops on your land, your grain, your wine and your oil, as well as the calves of your herds and the lambs of your flocks, in the land that he promised to your forefathers to give to you. 14 You will be more greatly blessed[d] than any other people. None of your men or women will be childless, none of your cattle will be without young. 15 The Lord will protect you from all illnesses. He will not inflict upon you any of the terrible diseases that you encountered in Egypt, but rather he will send them upon everyone who hates you. 16 You must annihilate all of the people whom the Lord, your God, delivers over to you. Do not look with pity upon them; do not serve their gods, for this would be a snare for you. 17 [e]You should say to yourselves, “These nations were stronger than we were. How did we ever drive them out?” 18 Do not be afraid of them. Remember what the Lord, your God, did to Pharaoh and to the whole of Egypt. 19 You saw with your own eyes the tremendous trials, signs, and wonders, how with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm the Lord, your God, brought you out. The Lord, your God, will do the same things to all of those people of whom you are afraid. 20 The Lord, your God, will destroy them by sending hornets into the midst of those who survived and are hiding. 21 Do not be afraid of them, for the Lord, your God, who is among you, is a great and awesome God. 22 Little by little the Lord, your God, will drive out those nations before you. You will not be able to eliminate them immediately, lest the wild animals around you multiply too much. 23 The Lord, your God, will hand them over to you, throwing them into a great confusion until they are totally wiped out. 24 He will deliver kings into your hands, and you will wipe out their names from under the heavens. No one will be able to stand up to you. You will destroy them.
25 You are to burn the idols of their gods in the fire. Do not seek after the gold or the silver that covers them, nor take it for yourselves, lest it become a snare for you. It is an abomination to the Lord, your God. 26 Nor should you bring an abomination into your house, or you, like it, will be set aside for destruction. Loathe and detest it, for it is something that is cursed.
Footnotes
- Deuteronomy 7:1 By slaughtering its enemies, Israel safeguards itself against the danger of being absorbed by the pagan world around it. When God began the education of his people, he could not immediately require them to rise above the rough and brutal practices of the age.
Deuteronomy provides other examples of such barbaric customs. It does indeed urge an unyielding resistance to the attractions of paganism, but it prescribes that the separation be accomplished in a fairly peaceful way. - Deuteronomy 7:3 Do not intermarry: the challenge, then as now, is to remain faithful to the one, true God in marriage.
- Deuteronomy 7:10 Each individual is personally responsible before God, as Ezekiel will later say in vigorous language (Ezek 18).
- Deuteronomy 7:14 More greatly blessed: loving and obeying the Lord reaps fruitful benefits, whether materially or more importantly, as gifts of peace, hope, and joy in the face of trials.
- Deuteronomy 7:17 This passage suggests that the region was not conquered as quickly as we might be led to think by the Book of Joshua, which simplifies the events. Israel could not settle in a wilderness; the anathema or law of destruction was therefore mitigated and never applied as systematically as some passages claim (see Jos 6:14-16).
