Deuteronomy 7:1-11

New King James Version

A Chosen People^(A)

7 “When the Lord your God brings you into the land which you go to ^(B)possess, and has cast out many ^(C)nations before you, ^(D)the Hittites and the Girgashites and the Amorites and the Canaanites and the Perizzites and the Hivites and the Jebusites, seven nations greater and mightier than you, ² and when the Lord your God delivers ^(E)them over to you, you shall conquer them and utterly destroy them. ^(F)You shall make no covenant with them nor show mercy to them. ^3 (G)Nor shall you make marriages with them. You shall not give your daughter to their son, nor take their daughter for your son. ⁴ For they will turn your sons away from following Me, to serve other gods; ^(H)so the anger of the Lord will be aroused against you and destroy you suddenly. ⁵ But thus you shall deal with them: you shall ^(I)destroy their altars, and break down their sacred pillars, and cut down their ^[a]wooden images, and burn their carved images with fire.

⁶ “For you are a ^[b]holy people to the Lord your God; ^(J)the Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for Himself, a special treasure above all the peoples on the face of the earth. ⁷ The Lord did not set His ^(K)love on you nor choose you because you were more in number than any other people, for you were ^(L)the least of all peoples; ⁸ but ^(M)because the Lord loves you, and because He would keep ^(N)the oath which He swore to your fathers, ^(O)the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you from the house of ^[c]bondage, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.

⁹ “Therefore know that the Lord your God, He is God, ^(P)the faithful God ^(Q)who keeps covenant and mercy for a thousand generations with those who love Him and keep His commandments; ¹⁰ and He repays those who hate Him to their face, to destroy them. He will not ^[d]be ^(R)slack with him who hates Him; He will repay him to his face. ¹¹ Therefore you shall keep the commandment, the statutes, and the judgments which I command you today, to observe them.