God Promises Help as the Israelis Enter Canaan

²⁰ “Look, I’m sending an angel in front of you to guard you on the way and to bring you to the place I’ve prepared. ²¹ Be careful! Be sure to obey him. Don’t rebel against him, because he won’t forgive your transgression, since my Name is in him. ²² Indeed, if you carefully obey him and do everything that I say, then I’ll be an enemy to your enemies and an adversary to your adversaries, ²³ because my angel will go ahead of you and will bring you to the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Canaanites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, and I’ll annihilate them. ²⁴ You are not to bow down to their gods or serve them. You are not to follow their practices,^[a] but you are to overthrow them completely and smash their sacred stones^[b] to pieces. ²⁵ You are to serve the Lord your God, and he will bless your food^[c] and water, and I’ll remove sickness from you. ²⁶ No woman will miscarry or be barren in your land, and I’ll make every day of your life complete.^[d]

²⁷ “I’ll go ahead of you and terrorize all the people to whom you are coming. I’ll confuse your enemies and make them turn their backs on you and run away.^{[e] 28} I’ll send hornets ahead of you and they’ll drive out the Hivites, the Canaanites, and the Hittites before you. ²⁹ I won’t drive them out before you in a single year, so that the land does not become desolate and so that wild animals do not overrun you. ³⁰ I’ll drive them out ahead of you little by little until you increase in numbers^[f] and possess the land.

³¹ “I’ll set your borders from the Reed^[g] Sea to the Sea of the Philistines,^[h] and from the desert to the Euphrates^[i] River, bringing^[j] the inhabitants of the land under your control,^[k] and you are to drive them out ahead of you. ³² You are not to make a covenant with them or with their gods. ³³ They are not to live in your land. Otherwise they will cause you to sin against me. If you worship their gods, it will become a snare for you.”