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32 You shall not make a covenant with them or their gods.

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12 (A)Take care not to make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land that you are to enter; lest they become a snare among you. 13 Tear down their altars; smash their sacred stones, and cut down their asherahs.[a]

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Footnotes

  1. 34:13 Asherah was the name of a Canaanite goddess. In her honor wooden poles (asherot) were erected, just as stone pillars (massebot) were erected in honor of the god Baal. Both were placed near the altar in a Canaanite shrine.

and when the Lord, your God, gives them over to you and you defeat them, you shall put them under the ban. Make no covenant with them(A) and do not be gracious to them.

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But this is how you must deal with them:(A) Tear down their altars, smash their sacred pillars, chop down their asherahs,[a] and destroy their idols by fire.

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Footnotes

  1. 7:5 Sacred pillars…asherahs: cut or uncut stones and wooden poles or trees (cf. 16:21) that had some cultic function. Fairly common religious artifacts, their association with the non-Israelite cults of Canaan and perhaps with Canaanite gods and goddesses, specifically the goddess Asherah, led to their condemnation in the Deuteronomic reform and possibly earlier.

(A)Destroy entirely all the places where the nations you are to dispossess serve their gods, on the high mountains, on the hills, and under every green tree.(B) Tear down their altars, smash their sacred pillars, burn up their asherahs, and chop down the idols of their gods, that you may destroy the very name of them from that place.

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