1 When Yahweh your God shall bring you into the land where you go to possess it, and shall cast out many nations before you, the Hittite, and the Girgashite, and the Amorite, and the Canaanite, and the Perizzite, and the Hivite, and the Jebusite, seven nations greater and mightier than you; 2 and when Yahweh your God shall deliver them up before you, and you shall strike them; then you shall utterly destroy them: you shall make no covenant with them, nor show mercy to them; 3 neither shall you make marriages with them; your daughter you shall not give to his son, nor shall you take his daughter for your son. 4 For he will turn away your son from following me, that they may serve other gods: so the anger of Yahweh would be kindled against you, and he would destroy you quickly. 5 But you shall deal with them like this: you shall break down their altars, and dash their pillars in pieces, and cut down their Asherim, and burn their engraved images with fire. 6 For you are a holy people to Yahweh your God: Yahweh your God has chosen you to be a people for his own possession, above all peoples who are on the face of the earth. 7 Yahweh 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: 8 but because Yahweh loves you, and because he would keep the oath which he swore to your fathers, has Yahweh brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you out of the house of bondage, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt. 9 Know therefore that Yahweh your God, he is God, the faithful God, who keeps covenant and loving kindness with them who love him and keep his commandments to a thousand generations, 10 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. 11 You shall therefore keep the commandment, and the statutes, and the ordinances, which I command you this day, to do them. 12 It shall happen, because you listen to these ordinances, and keep and do them, that Yahweh your God will keep with you the covenant and the loving kindness which he swore to your fathers: 13 and he will love you, and 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. 14 You shall be blessed above all peoples: there shall not be male or female barren among you, or among your livestock. 15 Yahweh will take away from you all sickness; and none of the evil diseases of Egypt, which you know, he will put on you, but will lay them on all those who hate you. 16 You shall consume all the peoples whom Yahweh your God shall deliver to you; your eye shall not pity them: neither shall you serve their gods; for that will be a snare to you. 17 If you shall say in your heart, "These nations are more than I; how can I dispossess them?" 18 you shall not be afraid of them: you shall well remember what Yahweh your God did to Pharaoh, and to all Egypt; 19 the great trials which your eyes saw, and the signs, and the wonders, and the mighty hand, and the outstretched arm, by which Yahweh your God brought you out: so shall Yahweh your God do to all the peoples of whom you are afraid. 20 Moreover Yahweh your God will send the hornet among them, until those who are left, and hide themselves, perish from before you. 21 You shall not be scared of them; for Yahweh your God is in the midst of you, a great and awesome God. 22 Yahweh your God will cast out those nations before you by little and little: you may not consume them at once, lest the animals of the field increase on you. 23 But Yahweh your God will deliver them up before you, and will confuse them with a great confusion, until they be destroyed. 24 He will deliver their kings into your hand, and you shall make their name to perish from under the sky: no man shall be able to stand before you, until you have destroyed them. 25 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 Yahweh your God. 26 You shall not bring an abomination into your house, and become a devoted thing like it. You shall utterly detest it, and you shall utterly abhor it; for it is a devoted thing.
With the seven nations that God shall cast out, Deuteronomy 7:1, they shall make no covenant, Deuteronomy 7:2, nor form any matrimonial alliances, Deuteronomy 7:3; lest they should be enticed into idolatry, Deuteronomy 7:4. All monuments of idolatry to be destroyed, Deuteronomy 7:5. The Israelites are to consider themselves a holy people, Deuteronomy 7:6; and that the Lord had made them such, not for their merits, but for his own mercies, Deuteronomy 7:7, Deuteronomy 7:8. They shall therefore love him, and keep his commandments, Deuteronomy 7:9-11. The great privileges of the obedient, Deuteronomy 7:12-24. All idolatry to be avoided, Deuteronomy 7:25, Deuteronomy 7:26.
INTRODUCTION TO DEUTERONOMY 7
In this chapter the Israelites are exhorted to destroy the seven nations of the land of Canaan, when they entered into it, and to make no alliances with them of any kind, nor suffer any remains of idolatry to continue, Deuteronomy 7:1 to observe which, and other commands of God, they are urged from the consideration of their being freely chosen of God above all other people, and of their being redeemed out of the house of bondage, and of the Lord's being a covenant keeping God to them, Deuteronomy 7:6 and it is promised them, for their further encouragement to keep the commands of God, that they should have an increase of all temporal good things, and no evils and calamities should come upon them, Deuteronomy 6:12, and, lest they should be disheartened at the numbers and might of their enemies, they are put in mind of what God had done for them in Egypt, and of what he had promised to do for them now, Deuteronomy 7:17 and they are assured that the nations should be cast out before them by little and little, until they were utterly destroyed, Deuteronomy 7:21 and the chapter is concluded with an exhortation to destroy their images, and not admit anything of that sort to be brought into their houses, Deuteronomy 7:25.
(Deuteronomy 7:1-11) Intercourse with the Canaanites forbidden.
(Deuteronomy 7:12-26) Promises if they were obedient.
*More commentary available by clicking individual verses.