Episode 71: God, Genocide, and Giants

(Deuteronomy 6-12)

Commandments, statutes, and judgments

6 ⁴ Our god is one god.

⁶ Love him with all your heart, soul, and might.

⁸ These words which I command this day shall be in your heart.

⁹ Write them on your door posts and gates.

¹³ Fear God, serve him, and swear by his name.

¹⁴ Don't pay attention to any other gods.

¹⁵ Because your god is a jealous god and he'll kill you if you do.

How to commit genocide

7 ² When God delivers nations to you, you must kill, without mercy, all the inhabitants of the land that you conquer. ³ Don’t marry anyone from any of these nations, because they’ll turn your sons away from God and cause them to serve other gods. ⁴ Then God will get angry and kill you suddenly.

⁵ Here is how you shall deal with them: Destroy their altars, images, groves, and graven images.

⁶ Because you are holy to God, and he has chosen you as a special people above everyone else on earth.

⁹ God will have mercy on those that love him and keep his commandments for a thousand generations. ¹⁰ But if you hate him, he'll hate you back (to your face) and then kill you.

¹¹ So keep God's commandments. If you do, he'll love and bless you. And you'll have lots of children, corn, wine, and sheep. ¹⁴ You'll be blessed more than anyone else. And none of you will be barren, not even your cattle. ¹⁵ None of you will ever get sick. God will send all the diseases to the people who hate you.

¹⁶ Kill all the people God delivers to you. Have no pity on them. And don't serve any of their gods. ¹⁸ Don't be afraid of them. Remember what God did to the Pharaoh and everyone in Egypt. ¹⁹ He’ll do the same to the people you are afraid of.

²⁰ God will send hornets to kill your enemies when they try to hide from you. ²¹ So don't be afraid. A mighty and terrible god is with you.

Remember the Exodus and obey the commandments

8 ¹ Obey all the commandments that I command you today and remember all the ways I have helped you during your 40-year wilderness journey.

³ God humbled you, made you hungry, and then fed you with manna.

He did this to show you that man doesn't live by bread alone, but by every word that comes out of his mouth.

⁴ During the Exodus, your clothes didn't wear out and your feet didn't swell for the last forty years.

²⁰ Remember that God will kill you if you worship other gods.

God will destroy the giants

9 ² The Anakim are great and tall.

People said of them, "Who can stand before them!"

³ But God, who is a raging fire, will destroy them.

Remember all the times when God wanted to kill everyone (But I talked him out of it)

⁷ Remember (and don't forget) how in Horeb God wanted to kill everyone.

¹² God said to me,

Go down the mountain quickly because the people have made a molten image.

I have seen these people. They are stiff-necked.

¹⁴ Leave me alone, so I can kill them all. I'll make some new, better people.

¹⁹ But God listened to me and didn't kill you.

10 A new set of tablets (Ex 34:1-28)

¹² And now, Israel, what does God ask of you, but to fear him, walk in all his ways, love and serve him with all your whole heart and soul, and keep his commandments that I'm giving you today?

¹⁶ Circumcise the foreskin of your heart, and don't be stiff-necked anymore.

¹⁹ Love strangers, because you used to be strangers

²² When your fathers left Egypt there were only seventy of them. Now there are as many of you as there are stars in heaven.

Remember God's killings

11 ³ Remember what God did to Pharaoh in Egypt.

⁴ How he drowned the Egyptian army, ⁶ and buried alive Dathan, Abiram, and their families.

Obey the commandments

²⁶ I set before you a blessing and a curse. A blessing if you follow the commandments, and a curse if you don't.

Religious intolerance, animal sacrifice, and abominations

12 ¹ These are the laws that you must observe all the days that you live on the earth.

² Destroy the places of worship of all the people you encounter, including their altars, pillars, groves, images, and names of their gods.

⁸ Don't do what you think is right.

^{15, 20} Kill and eat whatever you lust after. You may eat both clean and unclean animals. ^{16, 23} But don't eat blood.

³¹ The people of other nations have done every abomination that God hates, including burning their children for their gods.

³² Do everything I have commanded you to do. Don't add to or take away from these commandments.