That they do not teach you to do according to all their abominations, which they have done unto their gods; so would you sin against the LORD your God.
For he built up again the high places which Hezekiah his father had destroyed; and he built up altars for Baal, and made a grove, as did Ahab king of Israel; and worshiped all the host of heaven, and served them.
But you shall completely destroy them; namely, the Hittites, and the Amorites, the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites; as the LORD your God has commanded you:
When you shall besiege a city a long time, in making war against it to take it, you shall not destroy the trees thereof by forcing an axe against them: for you may eat of them, and you shall not cut them down (for the tree of the field is man’s life) to employ them in the siege:
Not for your righteousness, or for the uprightness of your heart, do you go to possess their land: but for the wickedness of these nations the LORD your God drives them out from before you, and that he may perform the word which the LORD swore unto your fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
Know for a certainty that the LORD your God will no longer drive out any of these nations from before you; but they shall be snares and traps to you, and scourges in your sides, and thorns in your eyes, until you perish off of this good land which the LORD your God has given you.