1 “When the ^eLord your God brings you into the land that you are entering to take possession of it, and clears away many nations before you, ^fthe Hittites, the Girgashites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, seven nations ^gmore numerous and mightier than you, 2 ^hand when the Lord your God gives them over to you, and you defeat them, then you must ⁱdevote them to complete destruction.^{1 j}You shall make no covenant with them and show no mercy to them. 3 ^kYou shall not intermarry with them, giving your daughters to their sons or taking their daughters for your sons, 4 for they would turn away your sons from following me, to serve other gods. ^lThen the anger of the Lord would be kindled against you, and he would destroy you ^mquickly. 5 But thus shall you deal with them: ⁿyou shall break down their altars and dash in pieces their ⁿpillars and chop down their ⁿAsherim and ^oburn their carved images with fire.

16 But ^uin the cities of these peoples that the Lord your God is giving you for an inheritance, you shall save alive nothing that breathes, 17 but ^vyou shall devote them to complete destruction,¹ the Hittites and the Amorites, the Canaanites and the Perizzites, the Hivites and the Jebusites, as the Lord your God has commanded, 18 that ^wthey may not teach you to do according to all their abominable practices that they have done for their gods, and so you ^xsin against the Lord your God.