Do not make any treaties with the people of the country, because when they worship their pagan gods and sacrifice to them, they will invite you to join them, and you will be tempted to eat the food they offer to their gods.

Your sons might marry those foreign women, who would lead them to be unfaithful to me and to worship their pagan gods.

Remember our sin at Peor, when the LORD punished his own people with an epidemic? We are still suffering because of that. Wasn't that sin enough?

Solomon loved many foreign women. Besides the daughter of the king of Egypt he married Hittite women and women from Moab, Ammon, Edom, and Sidon.

Solomon married seven hundred princesses and also had three hundred concubines. They made him turn away from God,

He worshiped Astarte, the goddess of Sidon, and Molech, the disgusting god of Ammon.

On the mountain east of Jerusalem he built a place to worship Chemosh, the disgusting god of Moab, and a place to worship Molech, the disgusting god of Ammon.

Then at Peor, God's people joined in the worship of Baal and ate sacrifices offered to dead gods.

The LORD says, "When I first found Israel, it was like finding grapes growing in the desert. When I first saw your ancestors, it was like seeing the first ripe figs of the season. But when they came to Mount Peor, they began to worship Baal and soon became as disgusting as the gods they loved.

No! What I am saying is that what is sacrificed on pagan altars is offered to demons, not to God. And I do not want you to be partners with demons.

If an unbeliever invites you to a meal and you decide to go, eat what is set before you, without asking any questions because of your conscience.

But if someone tells you, "This food was offered to idols," then do not eat that food, for the sake of the one who told you and for conscience' sake---

How can God's temple come to terms with pagan idols? For we are the temple of the living God! As God himself has said, "I will make my home with my people and live among them; I will be their God, and they shall be my people."

And so the Lord says, "You must leave them and separate yourselves from them. Have nothing to do with what is unclean, and I will accept you.

But there are a few things I have against you: there are some among you who follow the teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak how to lead the people of Israel into sin by persuading them to eat food that had been offered to idols and to practice sexual immorality.

Do not bow down to any idol or worship it, because I am the LORD your God and I tolerate no rivals. I bring punishment on those who hate me and on their descendants down to the third and fourth generation.

Do not bow down to their gods or worship them, and do not adopt their religious practices. Destroy their gods and break down their sacred stone pillars.

and then you will not associate with these peoples left among you or speak the names of their gods or use those names in taking vows or worship those gods or bow down to them.

If you do not keep the covenant which the LORD your God commanded you to keep and if you serve and worship other gods, then in his anger he will punish you, and soon none of you will be left in this good land that he has given you."

Yet I will leave seven thousand people alive in Israel---all those who are loyal to me and have not bowed to Baal or kissed his idol."