'Nations' in the Bible

The Lord will scatter you among the peoples, and you will be left few in number among the nations where the Lord drives you.

driving out from before you nations greater and mightier than you, to bring you in and to give you their land for an inheritance, as it is today.

“When the Lord your God brings you into the land where you are entering to possess it, and clears away many nations before you, the Hittites and the Girgashites and the Amorites and the Canaanites and the Perizzites and the Hivites and the Jebusites, seven nations greater and stronger than you,

“If you should say in your heart, ‘These nations are greater than I; how can I dispossess them?’

The Lord your God will clear away these nations before you little by little; you will not be able to put an end to them quickly, for the wild beasts would grow too numerous for you.

Like the nations that the Lord makes to perish before you, so you shall perish; because you would not listen to the voice of the Lord your God.

“Hear, O Israel! You are crossing over the Jordan today to go in to dispossess nations greater and mightier than you, great cities fortified to heaven,

“Do not say in your heart when the Lord your God has driven them out before you, ‘Because of my righteousness the Lord has brought me in to possess this land,’ but it is because of the wickedness of these nations that the Lord is dispossessing them before you.

It is not for your righteousness or for the uprightness of your heart that you are going to possess their land, but it is because of the wickedness of these nations that the Lord your God is driving them out before you, in order to confirm the oath which the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

then the Lord will drive out all these nations from before you, and you will dispossess nations greater and mightier than you.

You shall utterly destroy all the places where the nations whom you shall dispossess serve their gods, on the high mountains and on the hills and under every green tree.

“When the Lord your God cuts off before you the nations which you are going in to dispossess, and you dispossess them and dwell in their land,

beware that you are not ensnared to follow them, after they are destroyed before you, and that you do not inquire after their gods, saying, ‘How do these nations serve their gods, that I also may do likewise?’

For the Lord your God will bless you as He has promised you, and you will lend to many nations, but you will not borrow; and you will rule over many nations, but they will not rule over you.

“When you enter the land which the Lord your God gives you, and you possess it and live in it, and you say, ‘I will set a king over me like all the nations who are around me,’

“When you enter the land which the Lord your God gives you, you shall not learn to imitate the detestable things of those nations.

For those nations, which you shall dispossess, listen to those who practice witchcraft and to diviners, but as for you, the Lord your God has not allowed you to do so.

“When the Lord your God cuts off the nations, whose land the Lord your God gives you, and you dispossess them and settle in their cities and in their houses,

Thus you shall do to all the cities that are very far from you, which are not of the cities of these nations nearby.

and that He will set you high above all nations which He has made, for praise, fame, and honor; and that you shall be a consecrated people to the Lord your God, as He has spoken.”

“Now it shall be, if you diligently obey the Lord your God, being careful to do all His commandments which I command you today, the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations of the earth.

The Lord will open for you His good storehouse, the heavens, to give rain to your land in its season and to bless all the work of your hand; and you shall lend to many nations, but you shall not borrow.

Among those nations you shall find no rest, and there will be no resting place for the sole of your foot; but there the Lord will give you a trembling heart, failing of eyes, and despair of soul.

(for you know how we lived in the land of Egypt, and how we came through the midst of the nations through which you passed;

so that there will not be among you a man or woman, or family or tribe, whose heart turns away today from the Lord our God, to go and serve the gods of those nations; that there will not be among you a root bearing poisonous fruit and wormwood.

All the nations will say, ‘Why has the Lord done thus to this land? Why this great outburst of anger?’

“So it shall be when all of these things have come upon you, the blessing and the curse which I have set before you, and you call them to mind in all nations where the Lord your God has banished you,

It is the Lord your God who will cross ahead of you; He will destroy these nations before you, and you shall dispossess them. Joshua is the one who will cross ahead of you, just as the Lord has spoken.

“When the Most High gave the nations their inheritance,When He separated the sons of man,He set the boundaries of the peoplesAccording to the number of the sons of Israel.

“Rejoice, O nations, with His people;For He will avenge the blood of His servants,And will render vengeance on His adversaries,And will atone for His land and His people.”