Deuteronomy: Cruelty and Violence

"The Lord ... had slain Sihon ... and Og." 1:3-4
"God ... shall fight for you." 1:30
"The hand of the LORD was against them, to destroy them from among the host, until they were consumed."
God killed all the Israelite soldiers -- slowly. It took him 38 years to kill them all, but he finally got the job done. 2:14-16
"A land of giants: giants dwelt therein in old time ... but the Lord destroyed them." 2:20
"The Lord destroyed them before them" -- the general treatment of the people who were supposedly displaced by the Israelites. 2:21-22
"I have given into thine hand Sihon the Amorite, king of Heshbon, and his land: begin to possess it, and contend with him in battle." 2:24
All nations shall be terrorized by the followers of Yahweh. 2:25
God hardened the heart of the king of Heshbon and so that he could have him and all of his people killed. 2:30
At God's instructions, the Israelites "utterly destroyed the men, women, and the little ones" leaving "none to remain." 2:33-36
The Israelites, with God's help, kill all the men, women, and children of every city. 3:3-6
"And we utterly destroyed them, as we did unto Sihon king of Heshbon, utterly destroying the men, women, and children, of every city." 3:6
Moses promises Joshua that God will massacre kings and kingdoms for him, too. 3:21
When going to war, don't be afraid. God is on your side; "he shall fight for you." 3:22
"What God is there in heaven or in earth, that can do according to thy works?" What other God can kill so many people? 3:24
God destroyed the followers of Baalpeor. 4:3
God brought the Israelites out of Egypt "by war ... and by great terrors." 4:34
If someone makes an image of anything (like a bird or flower) then God will destroy the entire nation. 4:25-26
If you worship the wrong god, God will get jealous and kill you. 6:15
God instructs the Israelites to kill, without mercy, all the inhabitants (strangers) of the land that they conquer. 7:2
If you do show any mercy to such strangers, "give your daughters to any of them, or "take" any of their daughters, then you'll get God so angry that he'll "destroy thee suddenly." 7:4
God will kill those who hate him. 7:10
God commands his people to "consume all the people which the Lord thy God shall deliver thee; thine eye shall have no pity on them." 7:16
God will send hornets to kill your enemies, "for the Lord thy God is among you, a mighty God and terrible." 7:20-23
"The LORD thy God shall deliver them unto thee, and shall destroy them with a mighty destruction, until they be destroyed." 7:23
"If thou do at all forget the LORD thy God, and walk after other gods ... ye shall surely perish." 8:19-20
God is "a consuming fire" that destroys people. 9:3
"The blood of sacrifices shall be poured out ... and thou shalt eat the flesh." Isn't this the sort of thing that Satanists are accused of doing? 12:27
After God kills those of other faiths, be sure to reject their beliefs and do not learn about them. Otherwise God will have to kill you too. 12:30
Prophets and dreamers are to be executed if they say or dream the wrong things. 13:1-5
If your brother, son, daughter, wife, or friend tries to get you to worship another god, "thou shalt surely kill him, thine hand shall be first upon him to put him to death." 13:6-10
If you hear of a city where another god is worshiped, then destroy everyone in the city (even the cattle) and burn it down. (Watch out Salt Lake!) 13:12-16
How to buy a slave. 15:12
Sacrifice all firstling males to God. But don't sacrifice any blind, lame, or blemished animals. After sacrficing your unblemished firstlings, eat them before the Lord. But don't drink the blood. Pour it out like water. 15:19-23
Kill everyone who has religious beliefs that are different from your own. 17:2-7
Anyone who will not listen to a priest or a judge must be executed. 17:12-13
False prophets are to be (you guessed it) executed. How do you know who is a false prophet? By whether or not their predictions come true. (Watch out Jehovah's Witnesses!) 18:20
A murderer is to be killed by "the avenger of blood," which is the victim's nearest relative. "And thine eye shall not pity" them. 19:11-13
Do unto false witnesses as the criminals intended to do to their victims. 19:18-19
"And thine eye shall not pity. Life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot." 19:21
God travels with people and fights in their wars. 20:4
In the cities that god "delivers into thine hands" you must kill all the males (including old men, boys, and babies) with "the edge of the sword .... But the women ... shalt thou take unto yourself." 20:13
"But of the cities ... which the Lord thy God doth give thee for an inheritance, thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth." Kill the old men and women, the sick and the dying, the blind and the lame, pregnant mothers, nursing mothers, infants, toddlers, and babies. 20:16
If you find a dead body and don't know the cause of death, then get all the elders together, cut off the head of a heifer, wash your hands over its body, and say our hands have not shed this blood. (That'll do it!) 21:1-8
If you have a "stubborn and rebellious son," then you and the other men in your neighborhood "shall stone him with stones that he die." 21:18-21
When someone commits "a sin worthy of death" that person is "accursed of God" and should be hung on a tree. 21:22-23
If a man marries, then decides that he hates his wife, he can claim she wasn't a virgin when they were married. If her father can't produce the "tokens of her virginity" (bloody sheets), then the woman is to be stoned to death at her father's doorstep. 22:13-21
"If a man be found lying with a woman married to a husband, then they shall both of them die." 22:22
If a betrothed virgin is raped in the city and doesn't cry out loud enough, then "the men of the city shall stone her to death." 22:23-24
Legal disputes are settled by a judge who determines guilt or innocence. No lawyers or jury are needed. Those found guilty will be beaten with 40 stripes. 25:1-3
If two men fight and the wife of one grabs the "secrets" of the other, "then thou shalt cut off her hand" and "thine eye shall not pity her." 25:11-12
God commands the Israelites to "blot out the rembrance of Amalek from under heaven." A few hundred years later God orders Saul to kill of the Amalekites "both man and woman, infant and suckling." (1 Samuel 15:2-3) 25:19
If you don't obey all of the laws that are given in the Old Testament, God shower you with the curses that are given in the next 52 verses. 28:16-68
"Cursed shall be the fruit of thy body." 28:18
"The LORD shall send upon thee cursing, vexation, and rebuke, in all that thou settest thine hand unto for to do, until thou be destroyed, and until thou perish quickly." 28:20
"The LORD shall make the pestilence cleave unto thee, until he have consumed thee." 28:21
"The LORD shall make the rain of thy land powder and dust: from heaven shall it come down upon thee, until thou be destroyed." 28:24
"The LORD shall cause thee to be smitten before thine enemies." 28:25
"And thy carcass shall be meat to all the fowls of the air, and no man shall fray them away." 28:26
"The Lord will smite thee with the botch of Egypt, and the emerods [hemorrhoids], and with the scab, and with the itch, whereof thou canst be healed. The Lord will smite thee with madness, and blindness, and astonishment of heart." 28:27-28
"The Lord will smite thee with the botch of Egypt, and the emerods [hemorrhoids], and with the scab, and with the itch, whereof thou canst be healed." 28:27
"The Lord will smite thee with madness, and , and astonishment of heart." 28:28
"And thou shalt grope at noonday, as the blind gropeth in darkness, and thou shalt not prosper in thy ways: and thou shalt be only oppressed and spoiled evermore, and no man shall save thee." 28:29
"Thine ox shall be slain before thine eyes ... thine ass shall be violently taken away." 28:31
"Thy sons and thy daughters shall be given unto another people." 28:32
You will be enslaved and driven mad in another country. 28:33-34
"The Lord will smite thee in the knees, and in the legs, with a sore botch that cannot be healed, from the sole of thy foot unto the top of thy head." 28:35
You will be ruled by other nations, forced to serve other gods, become a laughingstock among your neighbors, have your crops destroyed by locusts, your vines eaten by worms, and have fruitless olive trees. 28:36-40
"Thou shalt begat sons and daughters, but thou shall not enjoy them; for they shall go into captivity." 28:41
"All these curses shall come upon thee ... and upon thy seed for ever." 28:48-49
God will enslave you and destroy you with hunger, thirst, hardship, and all kinds of deprivation. 28:48-52
"And thou shalt eat the fruit of thine own body, the flesh of thy sons and of thy daughters." 28:53
"So that the man that is tender among you, and very delicate, his eye shall be evil toward his brother, and toward the wife of his bosom, and toward the remnant of his children which he shall leave: So that he will not give to any of them of the flesh of his children whom he shall eat." 28:54-55
"The tender and delicate woman" will be forced to eat her own children "that cometh out from between her feet." 28:56-57
"If thou wilt not observe to do all the words of this law that are written in this book. Then the LORD will make thy plagues wonderful, and the plagues of thy seed ... Also every sickness, and every plague, which is not written in the book of this law, them will the LORD bring upon thee, until thou be destroyed." 28:58-61
If the Jews don't follow God's laws he'll have most of them killed. 28:62
"The LORD will rejoice over you to destroy you, and to bring you to nought." 28:63
"And the LORD shall scatter thee among all people, from the one end of the earth even unto the other; and there thou shalt serve other gods." 28:64
"The LORD shall give thee there a trembling heart, and failing of eyes, and sorrow of mind." 28:65
"And thy life shall hang in doubt before thee; and thou shalt fear day and night, and shalt have none assurance of thy life." 28:66
"In the morning thou shalt say, Would God it were even! and at even thou shalt say, Would God it were morning! for the fear of thine heart wherewith thou shalt fear, and for the sight of thine eyes which thou shalt see." 28:67
God will have you sold to your enemies -- but even they won't buy you. 28:68
If you serve the gods of other nations, "all the curses that are in this book" will fall upon you. 29:18-20
If you follow your own heart, God will curse you with all the curses in Deuteronomy 28:15-68. 29:19-20
"And the Lord will put all these curses upon thine enemies." See Deuteronomy 28:16-64 for some of the curses God has in mind. 30:7
Moses tells the people that God will destroy all the inhabitants of the lands that they pass through. 31:3
When God gets mad -- watch out! He'll starve you to death, burn you with fire, and send vicious beasts to devour you. He'll "destroy both the young man and the virgin, the suckling also with the man of gray hairs." Not even the helpless and innocent are spared by this psychotic God. 32:21-26
"For a fire is kindled in mine anger, and shall burn unto the lowest hell, and shall consume the earth with her increase, and set on fire the foundations of the mountains." 32:22
"I will heap mischiefs upon them; I will spend mine arrows upon them." 32:23
"They shall be burnt with hunger, and devoured with burning heat, and with bitter destruction: I will also send the teeth of beasts upon them, with the poison of serpents of the dust." 32:24
"The sword without, and terror within, shall destroy both the young man and the virgin, the suckling also with the man of gray hairs." 32:25
"I said, I would scatter them into corners, I would make the remembrance of them to cease from among men." 32:26
God says, "To me belongeth vengeance, and recompense ... for the day of their destruction is at hand." 32:35
God says, "I kill ... I wound ... I will make my arrows drunk with blood, and my sword shall devour flesh." Someone should take his sword and arrows away, at least until he's feeling better. 32:39-43
He [God] shall thrust out the enemy from before thee; and shall say, Destroy them. 33:27