Do not let them live in your land or they will cause you to sin against me, because the worship of their gods will certainly be a snare to you. The final verse of the Book of the Covenant closes with the reason for all the preceding prohibitions on covenant with the nations: the worship of their gods will be a snare. The word snare — moqesh — is the trap that catches the unwary. Psalm 106:36 records Israel falling into exactly this trap: they worshipped their idols, which became a snare to them. Judges 2:3 and 1 Kings 11:4 (Solomon's foreign wives) are the narrative fulfillments of this warning. The snare of foreign worship is not hypothetical — every subsequent generation of Israel proves the prediction. The law's prohibition is simultaneously the description of what Israel will repeatedly fail to do.

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