Instructions for the Conquest of Canaan

⁵⁰ Now the Lord spoke to Moses in the plains of Moab by the Jordan, across from Jericho, saying, ⁵¹ “Speak to the children of Israel, and say to them: ^(A)‘When you have crossed the Jordan into the land of Canaan, ^52 (B)then you shall drive out all the inhabitants of the land from before you, destroy all their engraved stones, destroy all their molded images, and demolish all their ^[a]high places; ⁵³ you shall dispossess the inhabitants of the land and dwell in it, for I have given you the land to ^(C)possess. ⁵⁴ And ^(D)you shall divide the land by lot as an inheritance among your families; to the larger you shall give a larger inheritance, and to the smaller you shall give a smaller inheritance; there everyone’s inheritance shall be whatever falls to him by lot. You shall inherit according to the tribes of your fathers. ⁵⁵ But if you do not drive out the inhabitants of the land from before you, then it shall be that those whom you let remain shall be ^(E)irritants in your eyes and thorns in your sides, and they shall harass you in the land where you dwell. ⁵⁶ Moreover it shall be that I will do to you as I thought to do to them.’ ”

² and when the Lord your God delivers ^(A)them over to you, you shall conquer them and utterly destroy them. ^(B)You shall make no covenant with them nor show mercy to them.

¹⁶ “But ^(A)of the cities of these peoples which the Lord your God gives you as an inheritance, you shall let nothing that breathes remain alive,