God's Angel to Prepare the Way

"See, I am sending an Angel before you to lead you safely to the land I have prepared for you. Reverence him and obey all of his instructions; do not rebel against him, for he will not pardon your transgression; he is my representative--he bears my name. But if you are careful to obey him, following all my instructions, then I will be an enemy to your enemies. For my Angel shall go before you and bring you into the land of the Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Canaanites, Hivites, and Jebusites, to live there. And I will destroy those people before you.

"You must not worship the gods of these other nations, nor sacrifice to them in any way, and you must not follow the evil example of these heathen people; you must utterly conquer them and break down their shameful idols.

"You shall serve the Lord your God only; then I will bless you with food and with water, and I will take away sickness from among you. There will be no miscarriages nor barrenness throughout your land, and you will live out the full quota of the days of your life.

"The terror of the Lord shall fall upon all the people whose land you invade, and they will flee before you; and I will send hornets to drive out the Hivites, Canaanites, and Hittites from before you. I will not do it all in one year, for the land would become a wilderness, and the wild animals would become too many to control. But I will drive them out a little at a time, until your population has increased enough to fill the land.

"And I will set your enlarged boundaries from the Red Sea to the Philistine coast, and from the southern deserts as far as the Euphrates River; and I will cause you to defeat the people now living in the land, and you will drive them out ahead of you.

"You must make no covenant with them, nor have anything to do with their gods. Don't let them live among you! For I know that they will infect you with their sin of worshiping false gods, and that would be an utter disaster to you."

The Covenant Confirmed »

TEXT SOURCE: (Exodus 23:20-33) The Children's Living Bible, ©1970 Tyndale House Publishers, Wheaton Illinois 60187
TITLE SOURCE: The New Student Bible, ©1992 Zondervan Publishing House, Grand Rapids Michigan 49530