³³ They shall not dwell in your land, lest they make you sin against me; for if you serve their gods, ^(A)it will surely be a snare to you.”

³⁰ take care ^(A)that you be not ensnared to follow them, after they have been destroyed before you, and that you do not inquire about their gods, saying, ‘How did these nations serve their gods?—that I also may do the same.’

¹⁶ And ^(A)you shall consume all the peoples that the Lord your God will give over to you. ^(B)Your eye shall not pity them, neither shall you serve their gods, for that would be ^(C)a snare to you.

^4 (A)“Do not say in your heart, after the Lord your God has thrust them out before you, ‘It is because of my righteousness that the Lord has brought me in to possess this land,’ whereas it is ^(B)because of the wickedness of these nations that the Lord is driving them out before you. ^5 (C)Not because of your righteousness or the uprightness of your heart are you going in to possess their land, but because of the wickedness of these nations the Lord your God is driving them out from before you, and that he may confirm ^(D)the word that the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.

⁶ “Know, therefore, that the Lord your God is not giving you this good land to possess because of your righteousness, for you are ^(E)a stubborn people.

Punishment for Child Sacrifice

20 The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, ² “Say to the people of Israel, ^(A)Any one of the people of Israel or of the strangers who sojourn in Israel who gives any of his children to Molech shall surely be put to death. The people of the land shall stone him with stones. ^3 (B)I myself will set my face against that man and will cut him off from among his people, because he has given one of his children to Molech, to make my sanctuary ^(C)unclean and ^(D)to profane my holy name. ⁴ And if the people of the land do at all close their eyes to that man when he gives one of his children to Molech, and do not ^(E)put him to death, ⁵ then I will set my face against that man and against his clan and will cut them off from among their people, him and all who follow him in ^(F)whoring after Molech.

^12 (A)Take care, lest you make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land to which you go, lest it become a ^(B)snare in your midst.

Abominable Practices

⁹ “When you come into the land that the Lord your God is giving you, ^(A)you shall not learn to follow the abominable practices of those nations. ¹⁰ There shall not be found among you anyone ^(B)who burns his son or his daughter as an offering,^[a] anyone who ^(C)practices divination or ^(D)tells fortunes or interprets omens, or ^(E)a sorcerer ¹¹ or a charmer or ^(F)a medium or a necromancer or ^(G)one who inquires of the dead, ^12 (H)for whoever does these things is an abomination to the Lord. And ^(I)because of these abominations the Lord your God is driving them out before you.

²⁵ The carved images of their gods ^(A)you shall burn with fire. You ^(B)shall not covet the silver or the gold that is on them or take it for yourselves, lest you be ^(C)ensnared by it, for it is an abomination to the Lord your God.

^24 (A)“Do not make yourselves unclean by any of these things, ^(B)for by all these the nations I am driving out before you have become unclean, ²⁵ and the ^(C)land became unclean, so that I punished its iniquity, and the land ^(D)vomited out its inhabitants. ²⁶ But ^(E)you shall keep my statutes and my rules and do none of these abominations, either the ^(F)native or the stranger who sojourns among you ²⁷ (for the people of the land, who were before you, did all of these abominations, so that the land became unclean), ²⁸ lest the land vomit you out when you make it unclean, as it vomited out the nation that was before you. ²⁹ For everyone who does any of these abominations, the persons who do them shall be cut off from among their people. ^30 (G)So keep my charge never to practice ^(H)any of these abominable customs that were practiced before you, and never to make yourselves unclean by them: ^(I)I am the Lord your God.”