1. These are the statutes and ordinances which you must be careful to observe in the land which the Lord, the God of your ancestors, has given you to possess, throughout the time you live on its soil.
2. Destroy entirely all the places where the nations you are to dispossess serve their gods, on the high mountains, on the hills, and under every green tree.
3. Tear down their altars, smash their sacred pillars, burn up their asherahs, and chop down the idols of their gods, that you may destroy the very name of them from that place.
4. That is not how you are to act toward the Lord, your God.
5. Instead, you shall seek out the place which the Lord, your God, chooses out of all your tribes and designates as his dwelling to put his name there. There you shall go,