Deuteronomy 7:13-16

7:13 He will love and bless you, and make you numerous. He will bless you with many children, ¹  with the produce of your soil, your grain, your new wine, your oil, the offspring of your oxen, and the young of your flocks in the land which he promised your ancestors to give you. 7:14 You will be blessed beyond all peoples; there will be no barrenness ²  among you or your livestock. 7:15 The Lord will protect you from all sickness, and you will not experience any of the terrible diseases that you knew in Egypt; instead he will inflict them on all those who hate you.

Exhortation to Destroy Canaanite Paganism

7:16 You must destroy ³  all the people whom the Lord your God is about to deliver over to you; you must not pity them or worship ⁴  their gods, for that will be a snare to you.

¹ tn Heb “will bless the fruit of your womb” (so NAB, NIV, NRSV).

² sn One of the ironies about the promises to the patriarchs concerning offspring was the characteristic barrenness of the wives of the men to whom these pledges were made (cf. Gen 11:30; 25:21; 29:31). Their affliction is in each case described by the very Hebrew word used here (עֲקָרָה, ’aqarah), an affliction that will no longer prevail in Canaan.

³ tn Heb “devour” (so NRSV); KJV, NAB, NASB “consume.” The verbal form (a perfect with vav consecutive) is understood here as having an imperatival or obligatory nuance (cf. the instructions and commands that follow). Another option is to take the statement as a continuation of the preceding conditional promises and translate “and you will destroy.”

⁴ tn Or “serve” (so KJV, NIV, NRSV).