Deuteronomy 7-10

Amplified Bible, Classic Edition

7 When the Lord your God brings you into the land which you are entering to possess and has plucked away many nations before you, the Hittites, the Girgashites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, seven nations greater and mightier than you,

² And when the Lord your God gives them over to you and you smite them, then you must utterly destroy them. You shall make no covenant with them, or show mercy to them.

³ You shall not make marriages with them; your daughter you shall not give to his son nor shall you take his daughter for your son,

⁴ For they will turn away your sons from following Me, that they may serve other gods; so will the anger of the Lord be kindled against you and He will destroy you quickly.

⁵ But thus shall you deal with them: you shall break down their altars and dash in pieces their pillars and hew down their Asherim [symbols of the goddess Asherah] and burn their graven images with fire.

⁶ For you are a holy and set-apart people to the Lord your God; the Lord your God has chosen you to be a special people to Himself out of all the peoples on the face of the earth.

⁷ The Lord did not set His love upon you and choose you because you were more in number than any other people, for you were the fewest of all people.

⁸ But because the Lord loves you and because He would keep the oath which He had sworn 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.

⁹ Know, recognize, and understand therefore that the Lord your God, He is God, the faithful God, Who keeps covenant and steadfast love and mercy with those who love Him and keep His commandments, to a thousand generations,

¹⁰ And repays those who hate Him to their face, by destroying them; He will not be slack to him who hates Him, but will requite him to his face.

¹¹ You shall therefore keep and do the instruction, laws, and precepts which I command you this day.

¹² And if you hearken to these precepts and keep and do them, the Lord your God will keep with you the covenant and the steadfast love which He swore to your fathers.

¹³ And He will love you, bless you, and multiply you; He will also bless the fruit of your body and the fruit of your land, your grain, your new wine, and your oil, the increase of your cattle 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 cattle.

¹⁵ And the Lord will take away from you all sickness, and none of the evil diseases of Egypt which you knew will He put upon you, but will lay them upon all who hate you.

¹⁶ And you shall consume all the peoples whom the Lord your God will give over to you; your eye shall not pity them, neither shall you serve their gods, for that would be a snare to you.

¹⁷ If you say in your [minds and] hearts, These nations are greater than we are; how can we dispossess them?

¹⁸ You shall not be afraid of them, but remember [earnestly] what the Lord your God did to Pharaoh and to all Egypt,

¹⁹ 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 people of whom you are afraid.

²⁰ Moreover, the Lord your God will send the ^[a]hornet among them until those who are left and hide themselves from you are destroyed.

²¹ You shall not dread them, for the Lord your God is among you, a mighty and terrible God.

²² And the Lord your God will clear out those nations before you, little by little; you may not consume them quickly, lest the beasts of the field increase among you.

²³ But the Lord your God will give them over to you and will confuse them with a mighty panic until they are destroyed.

²⁴ And He will give their kings into your hand, and you shall make their name perish from under the heavens; there shall no man be able to stand before you, until you have destroyed them.

²⁵ The graven images of their gods you shall burn with fire. You shall not desire the silver or gold that is on them, nor take it for yourselves, lest you be ensnared by it, for it is an abomination to the Lord your God.

²⁶ Neither shall you bring an abomination (an idol) into your house, lest you become an accursed thing like it; but you shall utterly detest and abhor it, for it is an accursed thing.

8 All the commandments which I command you this day you shall be watchful to do, that you may live and multiply and go in and possess the land which the Lord swore to give to your fathers.

² And you shall [earnestly] remember all the way which the Lord your God led you these forty years in the wilderness, to humble you and to prove you, to know what was in your [mind and] heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not.

³ And He humbled you and allowed you to hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know nor did your fathers know, that He might make you recognize and personally know that man does not live by bread only, but man lives by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord.

⁴ Your clothing did not become old upon you nor did your feet swell these forty years.

⁵ Know also in your [minds and] hearts that, as a man disciplines and instructs his son, so the Lord your God disciplines and instructs you.

⁶ So you shall keep the commandments of the Lord your God, to walk in His ways and [reverently] fear Him.^(A)

⁷ For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and springs, flowing forth in valleys and hills;

⁸ A land of wheat and barley, and vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive trees and honey;

⁹ A land in which you shall eat food without shortage and lack nothing in it; a land whose stones are iron and out of whose hills you can dig copper.

¹⁰ When you have eaten and are full, then you shall bless the Lord your God for all the good land which He has given you.

¹¹ Beware that you do not forget the Lord your God by not keeping His commandments, His precepts, and His statutes which I command you today,

¹² Lest when you have eaten and are full, and have built goodly houses and live in them,

¹³ And when your herds and flocks multiply and your silver and gold is multiplied and all you have is multiplied,

¹⁴ Then your [minds and] hearts be lifted up and you forget the Lord your God, Who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage,

¹⁵ Who led you through the great and terrible wilderness, with its fiery serpents and scorpions and thirsty ground where there was no water, but Who brought you forth water out of the flinty rock,

¹⁶ Who fed you in the wilderness with manna, which your fathers did not know, that He might humble you and test you, to do you good in the end.

¹⁷ And beware lest you say in your [mind and] heart, My power and the might of my hand have gotten me this wealth.

¹⁸ But you shall [earnestly] remember the Lord your God, for it is He Who gives you power to get wealth, that He may establish His covenant which He swore to your fathers, as it is this day.

¹⁹ And if you forget the Lord your God and walk after other gods and serve them and worship them, I testify against you this day that you shall surely perish.

²⁰ Like the nations which the Lord makes to perish before you, so shall you perish, because you would not obey the voice of the Lord your God.

9 Hear, O Israel. You are to cross the Jordan today to go in to dispossess nations greater and mightier than you are, cities great and fortified up to the heavens,

² A people great and tall, the sons of the Anakim, whom you know and of whom you have heard it said, Who can stand before the sons of Anak?

³ Know therefore this day that the Lord your God is He Who goes over before you as a devouring fire. He will destroy them and bring them down before you; so you shall dispossess them and make them perish quickly, as the Lord has promised you.

⁴ Do not say in your [mind and] heart, after the Lord your God has thrust them out from before you, It is because of my righteousness that the Lord has brought me in to possess this land—whereas it is because of the wickedness of these nations that the Lord is dispossessing them before you.

⁵ Not for your righteousness or for the uprightness of your [minds and] hearts do you go to possess their land; but because of the wickedness of these nations the Lord your God is driving them out before you, and that He may fulfill the promise which the Lord swore to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

⁶ Know therefore that the Lord your God does not give you this good land to possess because of your righteousness, for you are a hard and stubborn people.

⁷ [Earnestly] remember and forget not how you provoked the Lord your God to wrath in the wilderness; from the day you left the land of Egypt until you came to this place, you have been rebellious against the Lord.

⁸ Even in Horeb you provoked the Lord to wrath, and the Lord was so angry with you that He would have destroyed you.

⁹ When I went up the mountain to receive the tables of stone, the tables of the covenant which the Lord made with you, I remained on the mountain forty days and forty nights; I neither ate food nor drank water.

¹⁰ And the Lord delivered to me the two tables of stone written with the finger of God; and on them were all the words which the Lord spoke with you on the mountain out of the midst of the fire in the day of the assembly.

¹¹ And at the end of forty days and forty nights the Lord gave me the two tables of stone, the tables of the covenant.

¹² And the Lord said to me, Arise, go down from here quickly, for your people whom you brought out of Egypt have corrupted themselves. They have quickly turned aside from the way which I commanded them; they have made for themselves a molten image.

¹³ Furthermore the Lord said to me, I have seen this people, and behold, they are stubborn and hard.

¹⁴ Let me alone, that I may destroy them and blot out their name from under the heavens; and I will make of you a nation mightier and greater than they.

¹⁵ So I turned and came down from the mountain, and the mountain was burning with fire. And the two tables of the covenant were in my two hands.

¹⁶ And I looked, and behold, you had sinned against the Lord your God; you had made for yourselves a molten calf. You had turned aside quickly from the way which the Lord had commanded you.

¹⁷ I took the two tables, cast them out of my two hands, and broke them before your eyes.

¹⁸ Then I fell down before the Lord as before, for forty days and forty nights; I neither ate food nor drank water, because of all the sin you had committed in doing wickedly in the sight of the Lord, to provoke Him to anger.

¹⁹ For I was afraid of the anger and hot displeasure which the Lord held against you, enough to destroy you. But the Lord listened to me that time also.

²⁰ And the Lord was very angry with Aaron, angry enough to have destroyed him, and I prayed for Aaron also at the same time.

²¹ And I took your sin, the calf which you had made, and burned it with fire and crushed it, grinding it very small, until it was as fine as dust; and I cast the dust of it into the brook that came down out of the mountain.

²² At Taberah also and at Massah and at Kibroth-hattaavah you provoked the Lord to wrath.

²³ Likewise when the Lord sent you from Kadesh-barnea, saying, Go up and possess the land which I have given you, then you rebelled against the commandment of the Lord your God, and you did not believe Him or trust and rely on Him or obey His voice.

²⁴ You have been rebellious against the Lord from the day that I knew you.

²⁵ So I fell down and lay prostrate before the Lord forty days and nights because the Lord had said He would destroy you.

²⁶ And I prayed to the Lord, O Lord God, do not destroy Your people and Your heritage, whom You have redeemed through Your greatness, whom You have brought out of Egypt with a mighty hand.

²⁷ Remember [earnestly] Your servants, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; look not at the stubbornness of this people or at their wickedness or at their sin,

²⁸ Lest the land from which You brought us out say, Because the Lord was not able to bring them into the land which He promised them, and because He hated them, He has brought them out to slay them in the wilderness.

²⁹ Yet they are Your people and Your inheritance, whom You brought out by Your mighty power and by Your outstretched arm.

10 At that time the Lord said to me, Hew two tables of stone like the first and come up to Me on the mountain and make an ark of wood.

² And I will write on the tables the words that were on the first tables which you broke, and you shall put them in the ark.

³ So I [Moses] made an ark of acacia wood and hewed two tables of stone like the first, and went up the mountain ^[b]with the two tables of stone in my [one] hand.

⁴ And the Lord wrote on the tables as at the first writing, the Ten Commandments which the Lord had spoken to you on the mountain out of the midst of the fire on the day of the assembly; and the Lord gave them to me.

⁵ And I turned and came down from the mountain and put the tables in the ark which I had made; and there they are, as the Lord commanded me.

⁶ (The Israelites journeyed from the wells of the sons of Jaakan to Moserah. There Aaron died, and there he was buried, and Eleazar his son ministered in the priest’s office in his stead.

⁷ From there they journeyed to Gudgodah, and then to Jotbathah, a land of brooks [dividing the valley].

⁸ At that time the Lord set apart the tribe of Levi to bear the ark of the covenant of the Lord, to stand before the Lord to minister to Him and to bless in His name unto this day.

⁹ Therefore Levi has no part or inheritance with his brethren; the Lord is his inheritance, as the Lord your God promised him.)

¹⁰ And I [Moses] stayed on the mountain, as the first time, forty days and nights, and the Lord listened to me at that time also; the Lord would not destroy you.

¹¹ And the Lord said to me, Arise, journey on before the people, that they may go in and possess the land which I swore to their fathers to give to them.

¹² And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God require of you but [reverently] to fear the Lord your God, [that is] to walk in all His ways, and to love Him, and to serve the Lord your God with all your [mind and] heart and with your entire being,

¹³ To keep the commandments of the Lord and His statutes which I command you today for your good?

¹⁴ Behold, the heavens and the heaven of heavens belong to the Lord your God, the earth also, with all that is in it and on it.

¹⁵ Yet the Lord had a delight in loving your fathers, and He chose their descendants after them, you above all peoples, as it is this day.

¹⁶ So circumcise the foreskin of your [minds and] hearts; be no longer stubborn and hardened.

¹⁷ For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great, the mighty, the terrible God, Who is not partial and takes no bribe.

¹⁸ He executes justice for the fatherless and the widow, and loves the stranger or temporary resident and gives him food and clothing.

¹⁹ Therefore love the stranger and sojourner, for you were strangers and sojourners in the land of Egypt.

²⁰ You shall [reverently] fear the Lord your God; you shall serve Him and cling to Him, and by His name and presence you shall swear.

²¹ He is your praise; He is your God, Who has done for you these great and terrible things which your eyes have seen.

²² Your fathers went down to Egypt seventy persons in all, and now the Lord your God has made you as the stars of the heavens for multitude.