and when the Lord your God has delivered(A) them over to you and you have defeated them, then you must destroy(B) them totally.[a](C) Make no treaty(D) with them, and show them no mercy.(E) Do not intermarry with them.(F) Do not give your daughters to their sons or take their daughters for your sons, for they will turn your children away from following me to serve other gods,(G) and the Lord’s anger will burn against you and will quickly destroy(H) you. This is what you are to do to them: Break down their altars, smash their sacred stones, cut down their Asherah poles[b](I) and burn their idols in the fire.(J)

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Footnotes

  1. Deuteronomy 7:2 The Hebrew term refers to the irrevocable giving over of things or persons to the Lord, often by totally destroying them; also in verse 26.
  2. Deuteronomy 7:5 That is, wooden symbols of the goddess Asherah; here and elsewhere in Deuteronomy

10 When you march up to attack a city, make its people an offer of peace.(A) 11 If they accept and open their gates, all the people in it shall be subject(B) to forced labor(C) and shall work for you. 12 If they refuse to make peace and they engage you in battle, lay siege to that city. 13 When the Lord your God delivers it into your hand, put to the sword all the men in it.(D) 14 As for the women, the children, the livestock(E) and everything else in the city,(F) you may take these as plunder(G) for yourselves. And you may use the plunder the Lord your God gives you from your enemies. 15 This is how you are to treat all the cities that are at a distance(H) from you and do not belong to the nations nearby.

16 However, in the cities of the nations the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance, do not leave alive anything that breathes.(I) 17 Completely destroy[a] them—the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites—as the Lord your God has commanded you. 18 Otherwise, they will teach you to follow all the detestable things they do in worshiping their gods,(J) and you will sin(K) against the Lord your God.

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Footnotes

  1. Deuteronomy 20:17 The Hebrew term refers to the irrevocable giving over of things or persons to the Lord, often by totally destroying them.

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