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Deuteronomy 7

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1 When Yahweh your God shall bring you into the land where you go to possess it, and shall cast out many nations before you, the Hittite, and the Girgashite, and the Amorite, and the Canaanite, and the Perizzite, and the Hivite, and the Jebusite, seven nations greater and mightier than you;

2 and when Yahweh your God shall deliver them up before you, and you shall strike them; then you shall utterly destroy them: you shall make no covenant with them, nor show mercy to them;

3 neither shall you make marriages with them; your daughter you shall not give to his son, nor shall you take his daughter for your son.

4 For he will turn away your son from following me, that they may serve other gods: so the anger of Yahweh would be kindled against you, and he would destroy you quickly.

5 But you shall deal with them like this: you shall break down their altars, and dash their pillars in pieces, and cut down their Asherim, and burn their engraved images with fire.

6 For you are a holy people to Yahweh your God: Yahweh your God has chosen you to be a people for his own possession, above all peoples who are on the face of the earth.

7 Yahweh didn't set his love on you, nor choose you, because you were more in number than any people; for you were the fewest of all peoples:

8 but because Yahweh loves you, and because he would keep the oath which he swore to your fathers, has Yahweh 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 therefore that Yahweh your God, he is God, the faithful God, who keeps covenant and loving kindness with them who love him and keep his commandments to a thousand generations,

10 and repays those who hate him to their face, to destroy them: he will not be slack to him who hates him, he will repay him to his face.

11 You shall therefore keep the commandment, and the statutes, and the ordinances, which I command you this day, to do them.

12 It shall happen, because you listen to these ordinances, and keep and do them, that Yahweh your God will keep with you the covenant and the loving kindness which he swore to your fathers:

13 and he will love you, and bless you, and multiply you; he will also bless the fruit of your body and the fruit of your ground, your grain and your new wine and your oil, the increase of your livestock 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 livestock.

15 Yahweh will take away from you all sickness; and none of the evil diseases of Egypt, which you know, he will put on you, but will lay them on all those who hate you.

16 You shall consume all the peoples whom Yahweh your God shall deliver to you; your eye shall not pity them: neither shall you serve their gods; for that will be a snare to you.

17 If you shall say in your heart, "These nations are more than I; how can I dispossess them?"

18 you shall not be afraid of them: you shall well remember what Yahweh your God did to Pharaoh, and to all Egypt;

19 the great trials which your eyes saw, and the signs, and the wonders, and the mighty hand, and the outstretched arm, by which Yahweh your God brought you out: so shall Yahweh your God do to all the peoples of whom you are afraid.

20 Moreover Yahweh your God will send the hornet among them, until those who are left, and hide themselves, perish from before you.

21 You shall not be scared of them; for Yahweh your God is in the midst of you, a great and awesome God.

22 Yahweh your God will cast out those nations before you by little and little: you may not consume them at once, lest the animals of the field increase on you.

23 But Yahweh your God will deliver them up before you, and will confuse them with a great confusion, until they be destroyed.

24 He will deliver their kings into your hand, and you shall make their name to perish from under the sky: no man shall be able to stand before you, until you have destroyed them.

25 You shall burn the engraved images of their gods with fire. You shall not covet the silver or the gold that is on them, nor take it for yourself, lest you be snared in it; for it is an abomination to Yahweh your God.

26 You shall not bring an abomination into your house, and become a devoted thing like it. You shall utterly detest it, and you shall utterly abhor it; for it is a devoted thing.

   

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Field

  
The Sower, by Vincent van Gogh

A "field" in the Bible usually represents the Lord's church, and more specifically the desire for good within the church. It's where good things start, take root, and grow. When you have a desire to be a good person and to do good things, the natural first questions are "What does that mean?", "What should I do?", "What can I do?". You look for ideas, concepts, direction. Once you figure out something you want to do or a change you want to make in yourself, you seek specific knowledge. If you want to volunteer at a food pantry, say, you'd need to know whom to call, when they need help, where to go, what to bring. Armed with that knowhow, you're ready to get to work. That process could be compared to food production. You start with a field -- which is that desire to be good. Then you plant seeds -- those ideas and concepts. Those seeds sprout into plants -- the specific facts and knowledge needed for the task (easily seen in the food pantry example, but also true with deeper tasks like "being more tolerant of my co-workers" or "taking more time for prayer," or "consciously being a more loving spouse"). Finally, those plants produce food -- the actual good thing that you go and do. The Writings also say that in a number of cases a "field" represents the doctrine, or teachings, of the church. This sounds markedly different. The desire for good is emotional, a drive, a wanting; doctrine is a set of ideas. But for a church to be true, its doctrine must be centered on a desire for good, and must lead people toward doing what is good. So sound doctrine is actually closely bound up with the desire for good.