¹ When the LORD thy God shall bring thee into the land whither thou goest to possess it, and hath cast out many nations before thee, the Hittites, and the Girgashites, and the Amorites, and the Canaanites, and the Perrizites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites, seven nations greater and mightier than thou;

² And when the LORD thy God shall deliver them before thee, thou shalt smite them and utterly destroy them, thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor show mercy to them:

³ Neither shalt thou make marriages with them; thy daughter thou shalt not give to his son, nor his daughter shalt thou take to thy son.

⁴ For they will turn away thy son from following me, that they may serve other gods: so will the anger of the LORD be kindled against you, and destroy thee suddenly.

⁵ But thus shall ye deal with them; ye shall destroy their altars, and break down their images, and cut down their groves, and burn their graven images with fire.

⁶ For thou art a holy people to the LORD thy God: the LORD thy God hath chosen thee to be a special people to himself, above all people that are upon the face of the earth.

⁷ The LORD did not set his love upon you, nor choose you, because ye were more in number than any people; for ye were the fewest of all people:

⁸ But because the LORD loved you, and because he would keep the oath which he had sworn to your fathers, hath the LORD brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you from the house of bond-men, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.

⁹ Know therefore that the LORD thy God, he is God, the faithful God, who keepeth covenant and mercy with them that love him and keep his commandments to a thousand generations:

¹⁰ And repayeth them that hate him to their face, to destroy them: he will not be slack to him that hateth him, he will repay him to his face.

¹¹ Thou shalt therefore keep the commandments, and the statutes, and the judgments, which I command thee this day, to do them.

¹² Wherefore it shall come to pass, if ye hearken to these judgments, and keep, and do them, that the LORD thy God will keep to thee the covenant and the mercy which he swore to thy fathers:

¹³ And he will love thee, and bless thee, and multiply thee: he will also bless thy children, and the fruit of thy land, thy corn, and thy wine, and thy oil, the increase of thy kine, and the flocks of thy sheep, in the land which he swore to thy fathers to give thee.

¹⁴ Thou shalt be blessed above all people: there shall not be male or female barren among you, or among your cattle.

¹⁵ And the LORD will take away from thee all sickness, and will put none of the evil diseases of Egypt (which thou knowest) upon thee; but will lay them upon all them that hate thee.

¹⁶ And thou shalt consume all the people which the LORD thy God shall deliver to thee; thy eye shall have no pity upon them: neither shalt thou serve their gods; for that will be a snare to thee.

¹⁷ If thou shalt say in thy heart, These nations are more than I, how can I dispossess them?

¹⁸ Thou shalt not be afraid of them: but shalt well remember what the LORD thy God did to Pharaoh, and to all Egypt;

¹⁹ The great temptations which thy eyes saw, and the signs, and the wonders, and the mighty hand, and the out-stretched arm, by which the LORD thy God brought thee out: so shall the LORD thy God do to all the people of whom thou art afraid.

²⁰ Moreover, the LORD thy God will send the hornet among them, until they that are left, and hide themselves from thee, shall be destroyed.

²¹ Thou shalt not be affrighted at them: for the LORD thy God is among you, a mighty God and terrible.

²² And the LORD thy God will drive out those nations before thee by little and little: thou mayest not consume them at once, lest the beasts of the field increase upon thee.

²³ But the LORD thy God shall deliver them to thee, and shall destroy them with a mighty destruction, until they are destroyed.

²⁴ And he shall deliver their kings into thy hand, and thou shalt destroy their name from under heaven: there shall no man be able to stand before thee, until thou shalt have destroyed them.

²⁵ The graven images of their gods shall ye burn with fire: thou shalt not desire the silver or gold that is on them, nor take it to thee, lest thou shouldst be snared in it: for it is an abomination to the LORD thy God.

²⁶ Neither shalt thou bring an abomination into thy house, lest thou shouldst be a cursed thing like it: but thou shalt utterly detest it, and thou shalt utterly abhor it; for it is a cursed thing.

¹ Now when these things were done, the princes came to me, saying, The people of Israel, and the priests, and the Levites, have not separated themselves from the people of the lands, doing according to their abominations, even of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Jebusites, the Ammonites, the Moabites, the Egyptians, and the Amorites.

² For they have taken of their daughters for themselves, and for their sons: so that the holy seed have mingled themselves with the people of those lands: yea, the hand of the princes and rulers hath been chief in this trespass.

³ And when I heard this thing, I rent my garment and my mantle, and plucked off the hair of my head and of my beard, and sat down confounded.

⁴ Then were assembled to me every one that trembled at the words of the God of Israel, because of the transgression of those that had been carried away; and I sat confounded until the evening sacrifice.

⁵ And at the evening sacrifice I arose from my heaviness; and having rent my garment and my mantle, I fell upon my knees, and spread out my hands to the LORD my God,

⁶ And said, O my God, I am ashamed and blush to lift up my face to thee, my God: for our iniquities are increased over our head, and our trespass is grown up to the heavens.

⁷ Since the days of our fathers have we been in a great trespass to this day; and for our iniquities have we, our kings, and our priests, been delivered into the hand of the kings of the lands, to the sword, to captivity, and to a spoil, and to confusion of face, as it is this day.

⁸ And now for a little space grace hath been shown from the LORD our God, to leave us a remnant to escape, and to give us a nail in his holy place, that our God may lighten our eyes, and give us a little reviving in our bondage.

⁹ For we were bond-men; yet our God hath not forsaken us in our bondage, but hath extended mercy to us in the sight of the kings of Persia, to give us a reviving, to set up the house of our God, and to repair the desolations of it, and to give us a wall in Judah and in Jerusalem.

¹⁰ And now, O our God, what shall we say after this? for we have forsaken thy commandments,

¹¹ Which thou hast commanded by thy servants the prophets, saying, The land, to which ye go to possess it, is an unclean land with the filthiness of the people of the lands, with their abominations, which have filled it from one end to another with their uncleanness.

¹² Now therefore give not your daughters to their sons, neither take their daughters to your sons, nor seek their peace or their wealth for ever: that ye may be strong, and eat the good of the land, and leave it for an inheritance to your children for ever.

¹³ And after all that hath come upon us for our evil deeds, and for our great trespass, seeing that thou our God hast punished us less than our iniquities deserve, and hast given us such deliverance as this;

¹⁴ Should we again break thy commandments, and join in affinity with the people of these abominations? wouldst thou not be angry with us till thou hadst consumed us, so that there should be no remnant nor escaping?

¹⁵ O LORD God of Israel, thou art righteous: for we having escaped, remain yet, as it is this day: behold, we are before thee in our trespasses: for we cannot stand before thee because of this.