The Fifth Book of Moses: Deuteronomy

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- Kapitel 7 -

“Yahweh our God will bring you to the land that you will soon enter and occupy. As you advance, he will drive out from that land seven people groups that are more powerful and more numerous than you are. These are the Heth, the Girgash, the Amor, the Canaan, the Periz, the Hiv, and the Jebus people groups.

When Yahweh our God enables you to defeat them, you must kill them all. You must make no agreement with them, and you must not act mercifully toward them.

You must not marry any of them. You must not allow your daughters to marry any of their sons, or allow your sons to marry any of their daughters.

If you did that, those people would persuade your children to stop worshiping Yahweh and to worship other gods. If that happens, Yahweh will be very angry with you and he will destroy you very quickly.

This is what you must do to those people: Tear down their altars, break apart the stone pillars that are dedicated to their gods, cut down the poles that they use when they worship the goddess Asherah, and burn their molded idols.

You must do that because you are a group of people who belong only to Yahweh our God. He has chosen you from all the people groups in the world to be his own special people.

It was not because you were more numerous than any other people group that Yahweh chose you; you are one of the smallest people groups on the earth.

Instead, it is because Yahweh loved you and because he wanted to do what he solemnly promised to your ancestors. That is the reason that he rescued you by his great power from slavery in Egypt and from Pharaoh, the king of Egypt.

So do not forget that Yahweh is our God. He is faithful to us; he keeps his covenant for a thousand generations of people who love him and who obey his commandments.

But as for those who hate him, he will pay them back; he will punish them and quickly destroy them.

So you must be sure to obey all the commandments and rules and decrees that I am giving to you today.

The Promises of God

(Exodus 23:20–33)

If you pay attention to these decrees and always obey them, Yahweh our God will do what he has agreed to do for you, and he will faithfully love you, which is what he solemnly promised to your ancestors that he would do.

He will love you and bless you. He will enable you to have many children. He will bless your fields, with the result that you will have plenty of grain and grapes to make wine and plenty of olive oil. You will have many cattle and sheep. He will do all these things for you in the land that he promised to your ancestors that he would give to you.

He will bless you more than he will bless any other people group. All of you will be able to have children. All of your livestock will be able to produce offspring.

And Yahweh will protect you from all illnesses. He will not make you to be sick with any of the dreadful diseases that our ancestors knew about in Egypt, but he will make all your enemies sick with them.

You must destroy all the people groups that Yahweh our God enables you to conquer. Do not act mercifully toward any of them. And do not worship their gods, because if you do that, it would be like falling into a trap from which you will never be able to escape.

Do not think to yourselves, ‘These people groups are more numerous than we are. We will never be able to drive them out.’

Do not be afraid of them. Instead, think about what Yahweh our God did to the king of Egypt and to all the people whom he ruled.

Do not forget the terrible plagues that your ancestors saw him inflict on the people of Egypt, and the various kinds of miracles that God did in order to bring your ancestors out of Egypt. Yahweh our God will do the same kind of things to the people groups that you are afraid of now.

Furthermore, he will cause them to become terrified, and he will destroy those who remain alive and run away to hide from you.

Do not be afraid of those people, because Yahweh our God will be with you. He is a great God; he is the one that people are afraid of.

He will gradually drive out those people groups. You should not try to drive all of them out at one time, because if you did that, the number of wild animals would quickly increase, and you would not be able to get rid of them.

Instead, Yahweh will enable you to defeat your enemies one people group at a time. He will cause them to panic until they are destroyed.

He will enable you to defeat their kings. After you kill them, their names will be forgotten. No people group will be able to stop you; you will destroy all of them.

You must burn the carved figures that represent their gods. Do not desire to take the silver or gold decorations that are on those idols, because if you take them for yourselves, they will be like a trap to catch you. Yahweh hates every part of those idols.

You must not bring any of those disgusting idols into your houses, because if you do that, God will curse you like he curses them. You must hate and despise those idols, because they are things that Yahweh has cursed and he promises to destroy them.”

When the LORD your God brings you into the land where you go to possess it, and casts out many nations before you—the Hittite, the Girgashite, the Amorite, the Canaanite, the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite—seven nations greater and mightier than you;

and when the LORD your God delivers them up before you, and you strike them, then you shall utterly destroy them. You shall make no covenant with them, nor show mercy to them.

You shall not make marriages with them. You shall not give your daughter to his son, nor shall you take his daughter for your son.

For that would turn away your sons from following me, that they may serve other gods. So the LORD’s anger would be kindled against you, and he would destroy you quickly.

But you shall deal with them like this: you shall break down their altars, dash their pillars in pieces, cut down their Asherah poles, and burn their engraved images with fire.

For you are a holy people to the LORD your God. The LORD your God has chosen you to be a people for his own possession, above all peoples who are on the face of the earth.

The LORD didn’t set his love on you nor choose you, because you were more in number than any people; for you were the fewest of all peoples;

but because the LORD loves you, and because he desires to keep the oath which he swore to your fathers, the LORD has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you out of the house of bondage, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.

Know therefore that the LORD your God himself is God, the faithful God, who keeps covenant and loving kindness to a thousand generations with those who love him and keep his commandments,

and repays those who hate him to their face, to destroy them. He will not be slack to him who hates him. He will repay him to his face.

You shall therefore keep the commandments, the statutes, and the ordinances which I command you today, to do them.

The Promises of God

(Exodus 23:20–33)

It shall happen, because you listen to these ordinances and keep and do them, that the LORD your God will keep with you the covenant and the loving kindness which he swore to your fathers.

He will love you, bless you, and multiply you. He will also bless the fruit of your body and the fruit of your ground, your grain and your new wine and your oil, the increase of your livestock and the young of your flock, in the land which he swore to your fathers to give you.

You will be blessed above all peoples. There won’t be male or female barren among you, or among your livestock.

The LORD will take away from you all sickness; and he will put none of the evil diseases of Egypt, which you know, on you, but will lay them on all those who hate you.

You shall consume all the peoples whom the LORD your God shall deliver to you. Your eye shall not pity them. You shall not serve their gods; for that would be a snare to you.

If you shall say in your heart, “These nations are more than I; how can I dispossess them?”

you shall not be afraid of them. You shall remember well what the LORD your God did to Pharaoh and to all Egypt:

the great trials which your eyes saw, the signs, the wonders, the mighty hand, and the outstretched arm, by which the LORD your God brought you out. So shall the LORD your God do to all the peoples of whom you are afraid.

Moreover the LORD your God will send the hornet among them, until those who are left, and hide themselves, perish from before you.

You shall not be scared of them; for the LORD your God is among you, a great and awesome God.

The LORD your God will cast out those nations before you little by little. You may not consume them at once, lest the animals of the field increase on you.

But the LORD your God will deliver them up before you, and will confuse them with a great confusion, until they are destroyed.

He will deliver their kings into your hand, and you shall make their name perish from under the sky. No one will be able to stand before you until you have destroyed them.

You shall burn the engraved images of their gods with fire. You shall not covet the silver or the gold that is on them, nor take it for yourself, lest you be snared in it; for it is an abomination to the LORD your God.

You shall not bring an abomination into your house and become a devoted thing like it. You shall utterly detest it. You shall utterly abhor it; for it is a devoted thing.