20 Listen, I’m about to send a messenger in front of you to guard you on the way, and to take you to the place that I have prepared. 21 Stay behind him and listen to what he says. Don’t annoy him because he won’t put up with disobedience because he represents my authority. 22 But if you take careful notice of his words and do everything that I say, then I’ll be an enemy to your enemies and I’ll be against those who’re against you. 23 My messenger will go ahead of you and take you to face the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Canaanites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, and then I’ll annihilate them. 24 You mustn’t serve or bow down to their gods, and you mustn’t do what those people do, because you must completely overthrow them and completely smash their sacred stone pillars. 25 You all must worship your God Yahweh, and he’ll bless your food and your water. I’ll keep sickness away from you 26 and there won’t be any miscarriages or women in your land that can’t conceive. I’ll ensure that you live your full number of days.

27 I’ll go ahead of you and will terrify and confuse all of the people groups whose lands you’ll enter, and I’ll cause them to flee from you in battle. 28 I’ll send hornets ahead of you and they’ll drive out the Hivites, the Canaanites, and the Hittites before you get there. 29 I won’t drive them out more than a year ahead of you in case the area becomes desolate and the wild animals proliferate too much in the countryside. 30 I’ll drive them out little by little ahead of you until your numbers increase and you take over the land. 31 Then I’ll help you establish your borders from the Red Sea to the Mediterranean, and from the wilderness to the Euphrates river, because I’ll help you defeat the existing inhabitants of the land and so you’ll drive them right out. 32 You mustn’t make any agreement with those people or with their gods. 33 They mustn’t live in your land, in case they cause you to sin against me. Their gods would certainly become a trap for you, and then you’d end up worshipping them.