Deuteronomy 7:11-21

11 So be careful to obey the commands, rules, and laws I give you today.

12 If you pay attention to these laws and obey them carefully, the Lord your God will keep his agreement and show his love to you, as he promised your ancestors.

13 He will love and bless you. He will make the number of your people grow; he will bless you with children. He will bless your fields with good crops and will give you grain, new wine, and oil. He will bless your herds with calves and your flocks with lambs in the land he promised your ancestors he would give you.

14 You will be blessed more than any other people. Every husband and wife will have children, and all your cattle will have calves.

15 The Lord will take away all disease from you; you will not have the terrible diseases that were in Egypt, but he will give them to all the people who hate you.

16 You must destroy all the people the Lord your God hands over to you. Do not feel sorry for them, and do not worship their gods, or they will trap you.

17 You might say to yourselves, "Because these nations are stronger than we are, we can't force them out."

18 But don't be afraid of them. Remember what the Lord your God did to all of Egypt and its king.

19 You saw for yourselves the troubles, signs, and miracles he did, how the Lord's great power and strength brought you out of Egypt. The Lord your God will do the same thing to all the nations you now fear.

20 The Lord your God will also send terror among them so that even those who are alive and hiding from you will die.

21 Don't be afraid of them, because the Lord your God is with you; he is a great God and people are afraid of him.

Deuteronomy 7:11-21 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO DEUTERONOMY 7

In this chapter the Israelites are exhorted to destroy the seven nations of the land of Canaan, when they entered into it, and to make no alliances with them of any kind, nor suffer any remains of idolatry to continue, De 7:1-5 to observe which, and other commands of God, they are urged from the consideration of their being freely chosen of God above all other people, and of their being redeemed out of the house of bondage, and of the Lord's being a covenant keeping God to them, De 7:6-11 and it is promised them, for their further encouragement to keep the commands of God, that they should have an increase of all temporal good things, and no evils and calamities should come upon them, De 6:12-16, and, lest they should be disheartened at the numbers and might of their enemies, they are put in mind of what God had done for them in Egypt, and of what he had promised to do for them now, De 7:17-20 and they are assured that the nations should be cast out before them by little and little, until they were utterly destroyed, De 7:21-24 and the chapter is concluded with an exhortation to destroy their images, and not admit anything of that sort to be brought into their houses, De 7:25,26.