Deuteronomy 7

• 1. "When the LORD your God brings you into the land you are about to enter and occupy, he will clear away many nations ahead of you: the Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites. These seven nations are all more powerful than you.
• 2. When the LORD your God hands these nations over to you and you conquer them, you must completely destroy them. Make no treaties with them and show them no mercy.
• 3. Do not intermarry with them, and don't let your daughters and sons marry their sons and daughters.
• 4. They will lead your young people away from me to worship other gods. Then the anger of the LORD will burn against you, and he will destroy you.
• 5. Instead, you must break down their pagan altars and shatter their sacred pillars. Cut down their Asherah poles and burn their idols.
• 6. For you are a holy people, who belong to the LORD your God. Of all the people on earth, the LORD your God has chosen you to be his own special treasure.
• 7. "The LORD did not choose you and lavish his love on you because you were larger or greater than other nations, for you were the smallest of all nations!
• 8. It was simply because the LORD loves you, and because he was keeping the oath he had sworn to your ancestors. That is why the LORD rescued you with such amazing power from your slavery under Pharaoh in Egypt.
• 9. Understand, therefore, that the LORD your God is indeed God. He is the faithful God who keeps his covenant for a thousand generations and constantly loves those who love him and obey his commands.
• 10. But he does not hesitate to punish and destroy those who hate him.
• 11. Therefore, obey all these commands, laws, and regulations I am giving you today.
• 12. "If you listen to these regulations and obey them faithfully, the LORD your God will keep his covenant of unfailing love with you, as he solemnly promised your ancestors.
• 13. He will love you and bless you and make you into a great nation. He will give you many children and give fertility to your land and your animals. When you arrive in the land he swore to give your ancestors, you will have large crops of grain, grapes, and olives, and great herds of cattle, sheep, and goats.
• 14. You will be blessed above all the nations of the earth. None of your men or women will be childless, and all your livestock will bear young.
• 15. And the LORD will protect you from all sickness. He will not let you suffer from the terrible diseases you knew in Egypt, but he will bring them all on your enemies!
• 16. "You must destroy all the nations the LORD your God hands over to you. Show them no mercy and do not worship their gods. If you do, they will trap you.
• 17. Perhaps you will think to yourselves, `How can we ever conquer these nations that are so much more powerful than we are?'
• 18. But don't be afraid of them! Just remember what the LORD your God did to Pharaoh and to all the land of Egypt.
• 19. Remember the great terrors the LORD your God sent against them. You saw it all with your own eyes! And remember the miraculous signs and wonders, and the amazing power he used when he brought you out of Egypt. The LORD your God will use this same power against the people you fear.
• 20. And then the LORD your God will send hornets to drive out the few survivors still hiding from you!
• 21. "No, do not be afraid of those nations, for the LORD your God is among you, and he is a great and awesome God.
• 22. The LORD your God will drive those nations out ahead of you little by little. You will not clear them away all at once, for if you did, the wild animals would multiply too quickly for you.
• 23. But the LORD your God will hand them over to you. He will throw them into complete confusion until they are destroyed.
• 24. He will put their kings in your power, and you will erase their names from the face of the earth. No one will be able to stand against you, and you will destroy them all.
• 25. "You must burn their idols in fire, and do not desire the silver or gold with which they are made. Do not take it or it will become a snare to you, for it is detestable to the LORD your God.
• 26. Do not bring any detestable objects into your home, for then you will be set apart for destruction just like them. You must utterly detest such things, for they are set apart for destruction.

Deuteronomy 8

• 1. "Be careful to obey all the commands I am giving you today. Then you will live and multiply, and you will enter and occupy the land the LORD swore to give your ancestors.
• 2. Remember how the LORD your God led you through the wilderness for forty years, humbling you and testing you to prove your character, and to find out whether or not you would really obey his commands.
• 3. Yes, he humbled you by letting you go hungry and then feeding you with manna, a food previously unknown to you and your ancestors. He did it to teach you that people need more than bread for their life; real life comes by feeding on every word of the LORD.
• 4. For all these forty years your clothes didn't wear out, and your feet didn't blister or swell.
• 5. So you should realize that just as a parent disciplines a child, the LORD your God disciplines you to help you.
• 6. "So obey the commands of the LORD your God by walking in his ways and fearing him.
• 7. For the LORD your God is bringing you into a good land of flowing streams and pools of water, with springs that gush forth in the valleys and hills.
• 8. It is a land of wheat and barley, of grapevines, fig trees, pomegranates, olives, and honey.
• 9. It is a land where food is plentiful and nothing is lacking. It is a land where iron is as common as stone, and copper is abundant in the hills.
• 10. When you have eaten your fill, praise the LORD your God for the good land he has given you.
• 11. "But that is the time to be careful! Beware that in your plenty you do not forget the LORD your God and disobey his commands, regulations, and laws.
• 12. For when you have become full and prosperous and have built fine homes to live in,
• 13. and when your flocks and herds have become very large and your silver and gold have multiplied along with everything else,
• 14. that is the time to be careful. Do not become proud at that time and forget the LORD your God, who rescued you from slavery in the land of Egypt.
• 15. Do not forget that he led you through the great and terrifying wilderness with poisonous snakes and scorpions, where it was so hot and dry. He gave you water from the rock!
• 16. He fed you with manna in the wilderness, a food unknown to your ancestors. He did this to humble you and test you for your own good.
• 17. He did it so you would never think that it was your own strength and energy that made you wealthy.
• 18. Always remember that it is the LORD your God who gives you power to become rich, and he does it to fulfill the covenant he made with your ancestors.
• 19. "But I assure you of this: If you ever forget the LORD your God and follow other gods, worshiping and bowing down to them, you will certainly be destroyed.
• 20. Just as the LORD has destroyed other nations in your path, you also will be destroyed for not obeying the LORD your God.

Deuteronomy 9

• 1. "Hear, O Israel! Today you are about to cross the Jordan River to occupy the land belonging to nations much greater and more powerful than you. They live in cities with walls that reach to the sky!
• 2. They are strong and tall--descendants of the famous Anakite giants. You've heard the saying, `Who can stand up to the Anakites?'
• 3. But the LORD your God will cross over ahead of you like a devouring fire to destroy them. He will subdue them so that you will quickly conquer them and drive them out, just as the LORD has promised.
• 4. "After the LORD your God has done this for you, don't say to yourselves, `The LORD has given us this land because we are so righteous!' No, it is because of the wickedness of the other nations that he is doing it.
• 5. It is not at all because you are such righteous, upright people that you are about to occupy their land. The LORD your God will drive these nations out ahead of you only because of their wickedness, and to fulfill the oath he had sworn to your ancestors Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
• 6. I will say it again: The LORD your God is not giving you this good land because you are righteous, for you are not--you are a stubborn people.
• 7. "Remember how angry you made the LORD your God out in the wilderness. From the day you left Egypt until now, you have constantly rebelled against him.
• 8. Remember how angry you made the LORD at Mount Sinai, where he was ready to destroy you.
• 9. That was when I was on the mountain receiving the tablets of stone inscribed with the covenant that the LORD had made with you. I was there for forty days and forty nights, and all that time I ate nothing and drank no water.
• 10. The LORD gave me the covenant, the tablets on which God himself had written all the words he had spoken to you from the fire on the mountain.
• 11. "At the end of the forty days and nights, the LORD handed me the two stone tablets with the covenant inscribed on them.
• 12. Then the LORD said to me, `Go down immediately because the people you led out of Egypt have become corrupt. They have already turned from the way I commanded them to live and have cast an idol for themselves from gold.'
• 13. "The LORD said to me, `I have been watching this people, and they are extremely stubborn.
• 14. Leave me alone so I may destroy them and erase their name from under heaven. Then I will make a mighty nation of your descendants, a nation larger and more powerful than they are.'
• 15. "So I came down from the fiery mountain, holding in my hands the two stone tablets of the covenant.
• 16. There below me I could see the gold calf you had made in your terrible sin against the LORD your God. How quickly you had turned from the path the LORD had commanded you to follow!
• 17. So I raised the stone tablets and dashed them to the ground. I smashed them before your very eyes.
• 18. Then for forty days and nights I lay prostrate before the LORD, neither eating bread nor drinking water. I did this because you had sinned by doing what the LORD hated, thus making him very angry.
• 19. How I feared for you, for the LORD was ready to destroy you. But again he listened to me.
• 20. The LORD was so angry with Aaron that he wanted to destroy him. But I prayed for Aaron, and the LORD spared him.
• 21. I took your sin--the calf you had made--and I melted it in the fire and ground it into fine dust. I threw the dust into the stream that cascades down the mountain.
• 22. "You also made the LORD angry at Taberah, Massah, and Kibroth-hattaavah.
• 23. And at Kadesh-barnea the LORD sent you out with this command: `Go up and take the land I have given you.' But you rebelled against the command of the LORD your God and refused to trust him or obey him.
• 24. Yes, you have been rebelling against the LORD as long as I have known you.
• 25. "That is why I fell down and lay before the LORD for forty days and nights when he was ready to destroy you.
• 26. I prayed to the LORD and said, `O Sovereign LORD, do not destroy your own people. They are your special possession, redeemed from Egypt by your mighty power and glorious strength.
• 27. Overlook the stubbornness and sin of these people, but remember instead your servants Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
• 28. If you destroy these people, the Egyptians will say, "The LORD destroyed them because he wasn't able to bring them to the land he had sworn to give them." Or they might say, "He destroyed them because he hated them; he brought them into the wilderness to slaughter them."
• 29. But they are your people and your special possession, whom you brought from Egypt by your mighty power and glorious strength.'

New Living Translation: 55 of 324 days.