The Lord your God will bring you into the land. You are going to enter it and take it as your own. He’ll drive out many nations to make room for you. He’ll drive out the Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites. Those seven nations are larger and stronger than you are. ² The Lord your God will hand them over to you. You will win the battle over them. You must completely destroy them. Don’t make a peace treaty with them. Don’t show them any mercy. ³ Don’t marry any of their people. Don’t give your daughters to their sons. And don’t take their daughters for your sons. ⁴ If you do, those people will turn your children away from serving the Lord. Then your children will serve other gods. The Lord will be very angry with you. He will quickly destroy you. ⁵ So here is what you must do to those people. Break down their altars. Smash their sacred stones. Cut down the poles they use to worship the female god named Asherah. Burn the statues of their gods in the fire. ⁶ You are a holy nation. The Lord your God has set you apart for himself. He has chosen you to be his special treasure. He chose you out of all the nations on the face of the earth to be his people.

⁷ The Lord chose you because he loved you very much. He didn’t choose you because you had more people than other nations. In fact, you had the smallest number of all. ⁸ The Lord chose you because he loved you. He wanted to keep the promise he had made to your people of long ago. That’s why he used his mighty hand to bring you out of Egypt. He bought you back from the land where you were slaves. He set you free from the power of Pharaoh, the king of Egypt. ⁹ So I want you to realize that the Lord your God is God. He is the faithful God. He keeps his covenant for all time to come. He keeps it with those who love him and obey his commandments. He shows them his love.