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have prepared. Beware of him, and obey his voice, provoke him not;
for he will not pardon your transgressions; for my name is in him.
But if thou shalt indeed obey his voice, and do all that I speak, then
I will be an enemy unto thine enemies, and an adversary unto thine
adversaries. For mine angel shall go before thee, and bring thee in unto
the Amorites, and the Hittites, and the Perizzites, and the Canaanites,
the Hivites, and the Jebusites; and I will cut them off.” The angel who
went before Israel was the Lord Jesus Christ. “Thou shalt not bow
down to their gods, nor serve them, nor do after their works; but thou
shalt utterly overthrow them, and quite break down their images. And
ye shall serve the Lord your God, and he shall bless thy bread, and thy
water; and I will take sickness away from the midst of thee.”
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God would have his people understand that he alone should be the
object of their worship; and when they should overcome the idolatrous
nations around them, they should not preserve any of the images of
their worship, but utterly destroy them. Many of these heathen deities
were very costly, and of beautiful workmanship, which might tempt
those who had witnessed idol worship, so common in Egypt, to even
regard these senseless objects with some degree of reverence. The
Lord would have his people know that it was because of the idolatry
of these nations, which had led them to every degree of wickedness,
that he would use the Israelites as his instruments to punish them, and
destroy their gods.
“I will send my fear before thee, and will destroy all the people to
whom thou shalt come, and I will make all thine enemies turn their
backs unto thee. And I will send hornets before thee, which shall drive
out the Hivite, the Canaanite, and the Hittite, from before thee. I will
not drive them out from before thee in one year, lest the land become
desolate, and the beast of the field multiply against thee. By little and
little I will drive them out from before thee, until thou be increased,
and inherit the land. And I will set thy bounds from the Red Sea even
unto the sea of the Philistines, and from the desert unto the river; for I
will deliver the inhabitants of the land into your hand, and thou shalt
drive them out before thee. Thou shalt make no covenant with them,
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nor with their gods. They shall not dwell in thy land, lest they make
thee sin against me; for if thou serve their gods, it will surely be a
snare unto thee.”