Go up ¹  to a land flowing with milk and honey. But ²  I will not go up among you, for you are a stiff-necked people, and I might destroy you ³  on the way.”

I will send the wild animals ¹  against you and they will bereave you of your children, ²  annihilate your cattle, and diminish your population ³  so that your roads will become deserted.

I will destroy your high places and cut down your incense altars, ¹  and I will stack your dead bodies on top of the lifeless bodies of your idols. ²  I will abhor you. ³ 

I, the Lord, have said, “I will surely do so to all this evil congregation that has gathered together against me. In this wilderness they will be finished, and there they will die!”’”

you must drive out all the inhabitants of the land before you. Destroy all their carved images, all their molten images, ¹  and demolish their high places.

You complained among yourselves privately ¹  and said, “Because the Lord hates us he brought us from Egypt to deliver us over to the Amorites so they could destroy us!

They are a people as powerful, numerous, and tall as the Anakites. But the Lord destroyed the Rephaites ¹  in advance of the Ammonites, ²  so they dispossessed them and settled down in their place.

This is exactly what he did for the descendants of Esau who lived in Seir when he destroyed the Horites before them so that they could dispossess them and settle in their area to this very day.

You have witnessed what the Lord did at Baal Peor, ¹  how he ²  eradicated from your midst everyone who followed Baal Peor. ³ 

(for he ¹  is a merciful God), he will not let you down ²  or destroy you, for he cannot ³  forget the covenant with your ancestors that he confirmed by oath to them.

for the Lord your God, who is present among you, is a jealous God and his anger will erupt against you and remove you from the land. ¹ 

for they will turn your sons away from me to worship other gods. Then the anger of the Lord will erupt against you and he will quickly destroy you.

You must destroy ¹  all the people whom the Lord your God is about to deliver over to you; you must not pity them or worship ²  their gods, for that will be a snare to you.

He will hand over their kings to you and you will erase their very names from memory. ¹  Nobody will be able to resist you until you destroy them.

Stand aside ¹  and I will destroy them, obliterating their very name from memory, ²  and I will make you into a stronger and more numerous nation than they are.”

For I was terrified at the Lord’s intense anger ¹  that threatened to destroy you. But he ²  listened to me this time as well.

As for me, I stayed at the mountain as I did the first time, forty days and nights. The Lord listened to me that time as well and decided not to destroy you.

After they have been destroyed from your presence, be careful not to be ensnared like they are; do not pursue their gods and say, “How do these nations serve their gods? I will do the same.”

However, you may chop down any tree you know is not suitable for food, ¹  and you may use it to build siege works ²  against the city that is making war with you until that city falls.

He ¹  will afflict you with weakness, ²  fever, inflammation, infection, ³  sword, ⁴  blight, and mildew; these will attack you until you perish.