Deuteronomy 7:2 (DRB)

Passage

And the Lord thy God shall have delivered them to thee, thou shalt utterly destroy them. Thou shalt make no league with them, nor shew mercy to them:

Nearby Context

Deuteronomy 7:1 When the Lord thy God shall have brought thee into the land, which thou art going in to possess, and shall have destroyed many nations before thee, the Hethite, and the Gergezite, and the Amorrhite, and the Chanaanite, and the Pherezite, and the Hevite, and the Jebusite, seven nations much more numerous than thou art, and stronger than thou:

Deuteronomy 7:2 And the Lord thy God shall have delivered them to thee, thou shalt utterly destroy them. Thou shalt make no league with them, nor shew mercy to them:

Deuteronomy 7:3 Neither shalt thou make marriages with them. Thou shalt not give thy daughter to his son, nor take his daughter for thy son:

Deuteronomy 7:4 For she will turn away thy son from following me, that he may rather serve strange gods, and the wrath of the Lord will be kindled, and will quickly destroy thee.

Study Lenses

The verse centers on "mercy", "lord", "shall", "delivered", "thee", "thou", "shalt", and "utterly". It is saying that the verse draws attention to "mercy" and "lord", so its meaning should be read from those terms before moving to application.

The nearby context moves from verse 1's "When the Lord thy God shall have..." into verse 3's "Neither shalt thou make marriages with them...", so "mercy" and "lord" belong inside that flow. In Deuteronomy context, the local focus is covenant, worship, and faithfulness.

A plain takeaway is to answer the verse's own emphasis on "mercy" and "lord" with trust shaped by these words, not by a vague optimism outside the passage.