1 "When YHVH, your god, brings you into the land which you are entering to take possession of it, and clears away many nations before you, the Hittites, the Gir'gashites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Per'izzites, the Hivites, and the Jeb'usites, seven nations greater and mightier than yourselves,
2 and when YHVH, your god, gives them over to you, and you defeat them; then you must utterly destroy them; you shall make no covenant with them, and show no mercy to them.
3 You shall not make marriages with them, giving your daughters to their sons or taking their daughters for your sons.
4 For they would turn away your sons from following me, to serve other gods; then the anger of YHVH would be kindled against you, and he would destroy you quickly.
If they intermarry, which is to become diluted or changed by material thoughts, represented by the seven nations, they will no longer be able to hear Him.
These seven peoples or thoughts and emotions must be driven out and destroyed. Let's see what the story is telling us. The name Hittites when translated from the Aramaic (the original Hebrew of Deuteronomy) means broken or terror. So the first one of the emotions we are to "drive out and destroy" is fear.
The name Girgashite means dense. Here it means a denseness of thought - thought that is bound in materialism.
The name Amorites means mountaineer. But as a son of Canaan, it indicates the generative function and has to do with lust.
The name Canaanites is translated as one who exists for material things.
The Perizzites means rustic or countryman. Here it indicates the lower levels of consciousness, strongly entrenched in the senses.
Hivites which means beastiality or wickedness, are also listed among the "peoples" or thoughts which we must destroy.
And finally, the Jebusites, which translates as trodden down or polluted are also to be driven out and destroyed. When you understand what all of these "people" really represent, it is not so difficult to understand why we are told to destroy them. They are not part of the spiritually enlightened person we are trying to become.
5 But thus shall you deal with them: you shall break down their altars, and dash in pieces their pillars, and hew down their Ashe'rim, and burn their graven images with fire.
6 "For you are a people holy to YHVH, your god, YHVH, your god, has chosen you to be a people for his own possession, out of all the peoples that are on the face of the earth.
7 It was not because you were more in number than any other people that YHVH set his love upon you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples;
8 but it is because YHVH loves you, and is keeping the oath which he swore to your fathers, that YHVH has brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you from the house of bondage, from the hand of Pharaoh, king of Egypt.
9 Know therefore that YHVH, your god, is the gods, the faithful god, who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, to a thousand generations,
10 and requites to their face those who hate him, by destroying them; he will not be slack with him who hates him, he will requite him to his face.
11 You shall therefore be careful to do the commandment, and the statutes, and the ordinances, which I command you this day.
12 "And because you hearken to these ordinances, and keep and do them, YHVH, your god, will keep with you the covenant and the steadfast love which he swore to your fathers to keep;
13 he will love you, bless you, and multiply you; he will also bless the fruit of your body and the fruit of your ground, your grain and your wine and your oil, the increase of your cattle and the young of your flock, in the land which he swore to your fathers to give you.
14 You shall be blessed above all peoples; there shall not be male or female barren among you, or among your cattle.
15 And YHVH will take away from you all sickness; and none of the evil diseases of Egypt, which you knew, will he inflict upon you, but he will lay them upon all who hate you.
16 And you shall destroy all the peoples that YHVH, your god, will give over to you, your eye shall not pity them; neither shall you serve their gods, for that would be a snare to you.
17 "If you say in your heart, 'These nations are greater than I; how can I dispossess them?'
18 you shall not be afraid of them, but you shall remember what YHVH, your god, did to Pharaoh and to all Egypt,
19 the great trials which your eyes saw, the signs, the wonders, the mighty hand, and the outstretched arm, by which YHVH, your god, brought you out; so will YHVH, your god, do to all the peoples of whom you are afraid.
20 Moreover YHVH, your god, will send hornets among them, until those who are left and hide themselves from you are destroyed.