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The blessings of worshiping God only
1 “Yahweh our God will bring you to the land that you will soon enter and occupy. As you advance, he will expel from that land seven people-groups that are more powerful and more numerous than you are. He will expel the Heth people-group, the Girgash people-group, the Amor people-group, the Canaan people-group, the Periz people-group, the Hiv people-group, and the Jebus people-group. 2 When Yahweh our God enables you to defeat [DOU] them, you must kill all of them. You must not make ◄an alliance/a peace treaty► with any of them. You must not act mercifully toward them. 3 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. 4 Because, if you did that, those people would cause your children to stop worshiping Yahweh and to worship other gods. If that happens, Yahweh will be very angry with you and he will get rid of you immediately. 5 This is what you must do to those people: Tear down their ◄altars/places for sacrificing animals►, break apart the stone pillars that are dedicated to their male god Baal, cut down the poles that they use when they worship the goddess Asherah, and burn their wooden idols. 6 You must do that because you are a group of people who belong to Yahweh our God. He has chosen you from among all the people-groups in the world to be his own special people.
7 “It was not because you were more numerous than any other people-group that Yahweh preferred you; you are one of the smallest people-groups on the earth. 8 Instead, it is because Yahweh loved you and because he wanted to do what he vowed to your ancestors. That is the reason that he rescued you by his great power [MTY], and freed you from being slaves [MTY] of the king of Egypt. 9 So do not forget that Yahweh our God is the only/true God. He will do what he agreed to do for you, and he will faithfully love ◄for 1,000 generations/forever► all those who love him and who obey his commandments. 10 But for those who hate him, he will ◄pay them back/do to them what they deserve►; he will punish them and quickly get rid of them.
11 “So you must be sure to obey all the commandments and rules and regulations that I am giving to you today. 12 If you heed these commands and obey them faithfully, Yahweh our God will do what he has agreed to do for you, and he will faithfully love you, which is what he vowed to your ancestors that he would do. 13 He will love you and bless you. He will enable you to have many children [DOU]. 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. 14 He will bless you more than he will bless any other people-group. All of you will be able to have/produce children [LIT]. All of your livestock will be able to produce offspring. 15 And Yahweh will protect you from all illnesses. You will not be afflicted with any of the dreadful diseases that our ancestors knew about in Egypt, but all your enemies will be inflicted with those diseases. 16 You must get rid of all the people-groups that Yahweh our God will enable you to conquer. Do not [SYN] 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.
17 “Do not think to yourselves, ‘These people-groups are more numerous/powerful than we are, so we certainly cannot [RHQ] expel them.’ 18 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. 19 Do not forget the terrible plagues that your ancestors saw Yahweh inflict on the people of Egypt, and the many [DOU] miracles that he performed, and the very powerful [DOU, MTY] way by which he brought 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. 20 Furthermore, he will cause them to become terrified, and he will destroy those who remain alive and run away to hide from you. 21 Do not be afraid of those people, because Yahweh our God will be with/among you. He is a great God; he is the one you should be afraid of. 22 He will expel those people-groups gradually. You should not try to expel all of them 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. 23 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. 24 He will enable you to defeat [IDM] their kings. After you kill them, their names will be forgotten {people will forget about them}. No people-group will be able to stop you; you will destroy all of them. 25 You must burn the wooden idols 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 cause you to want to worship those idols. Yahweh hates the worship of those idols. 26 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 [DOU] those idols, because they are things that Yahweh has cursed.”