Be careful, lest you make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land where you are going, lest it be for a snare in the middle of you:
Parallel translations
- KJV Take heed to thyself, lest thou make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land whither thou goest, lest it be for a snare in the midst of thee:
- BSB Be careful not to make a treaty with the inhabitants of the land you are entering, lest they become a snare in your midst.
- NKJV Take heed to yourself, lest you make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land where you are going, lest it be a snare in your midst.
- NASB Be careful that you do not make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land into which you are going, or it will become a snare in your midst.
- NLT “Be very careful never to make a treaty with the people who live in the land where you are going. If you do, you will follow their evil ways and be trapped.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
Israel is warned not to make a covenant with the land's inhabitants, lest it become a snare. Compromise with idolatry is a deadly trap.
Overview
God commands separation from the Canaanites' false worship to protect Israel from being ensnared. The danger is not the people as such but the idolatry that would lure Israel away from the Lord. The principle endures: God's people must guard against entanglements that draw the heart away from exclusive devotion to Him.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 7
- Exod 23:32–33You shall make no covenant with them, nor with their gods.
- Josh 23:12–13“But if you do at all go back, and hold fast to the remnant of these nations, even these who remain among you, and make marriages with them, and go in to them, and they to you;
- Deut 7:2and when Yahweh your God delivers them up before you, and you strike them; then you shall utterly destroy them. You shall make no covenant with them, nor show mercy to them;
- Deut 7:16You shall consume all the peoples whom Yahweh your God shall deliver to you. Your eye shall not pity them: neither shall you serve their gods; for that would be a snare to you.
- Judg 2:2–3You shall make no covenant with the inhabitants of this land. You shall break down their altars.’ But you have not listened to my voice. Why have you done this?
- Ps 106:36They served their idols, which became a snare to them.
- Judg 8:27Gideon made an ephod out of it, and put it in Ophrah, his city. Then all Israel played the prostitute with it there; and it became a snare to Gideon, and to his house.
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Christ at the center
The Passover lamb whose blood turns away death, the exodus through the sea, the manna, the rock, and the tabernacle where God dwells with his people all foreshadow Jesus — our Passover, our redemption, the bread from heaven, and God-with-us in the flesh.
How Exodus 34:12 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
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