'Nations' in the Bible

From these the coastlands of the nations were separated into their lands, every one according to its language, according to their families, by their nations.

These are the sons of Ham, according to their families, according to their languages, by their lands, and by their nations.

These are the sons of Shem according to their families, according to their languages, by their lands, and according to their nations.

These are the families of the sons of Noah, according to their genealogies, by their nations, and from these the nations spread over the earth after the flood.

At that time Amraphel king of Shinar, Arioch king of Ellasar, Kedorlaomer king of Elam, and Tidal king of nations

Kedorlaomer king of Elam, Tidal king of nations, Amraphel king of Shinar, and Arioch king of Ellasar. Four kings fought against five.

"As for me, this is my covenant with you: You will be the father of a multitude of nations.

No longer will your name be Abram. Instead, your name will be Abraham because I will make you the father of a multitude of nations.

I will make you extremely fruitful. I will make nations of you, and kings will descend from you.

I will bless her and will give you a son through her. I will bless her and she will become a mother of nations. Kings of countries will come from her!"

After all, Abraham will surely become a great and powerful nation, and all the nations on the earth will pronounce blessings on one another using his name.

Because you have obeyed me, all the nations of the earth will pronounce blessings on one another using the name of your descendants.'"

and the Lord said to her, "Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples will be separated from within you. One people will be stronger than the other, and the older will serve the younger."

I will multiply your descendants so they will be as numerous as the stars in the sky, and I will give them all these lands. All the nations of the earth will pronounce blessings on one another using the name of your descendants.

May peoples serve you and nations bow down to you. You will be lord over your brothers, and the sons of your mother will bow down to you. May those who curse you be cursed, and those who bless you be blessed."

Then God said to him, "I am the sovereign God. Be fruitful and multiply! A nation -- even a company of nations -- will descend from you; kings will be among your descendants!

He said to me, 'I am going to make you fruitful and will multiply you. I will make you into a group of nations, and I will give this land to your descendants as an everlasting possession.'

But his father refused and said, "I know, my son, I know. He too will become a nation and he too will become great. In spite of this, his younger brother will be even greater and his descendants will become a multitude of nations."

The scepter will not depart from Judah, nor the ruler's staff from between his feet, until he comes to whom it belongs; the nations will obey him.

The nations will hear and tremble; anguish will seize the inhabitants of Philistia.

And now, if you will diligently listen to me and keep my covenant, then you will be my special possession out of all the nations, for all the earth is mine,

For I will drive out the nations before you and enlarge your borders; no one will covet your land when you go up to appear before the Lord your God three times in the year.

"'Do not defile yourselves with any of these things, for the nations which I am about to drive out before you have been defiled with all these things.

So do not make the land vomit you out because you defile it just as it has vomited out the nations that were before you.

"'As for your male and female slaves who may belong to you -- you may buy male and female slaves from the nations all around you.

I will scatter you among the nations and unsheathe the sword after you, so your land will become desolate and your cities will become a waste.

You will perish among the nations; the land of your enemies will consume you.

I will remember for them the covenant with their ancestors whom I brought out from the land of Egypt in the sight of the nations to be their God. I am the Lord.'"

If you kill this entire people at once, then the nations that have heard of your fame will say,

For from the top of the rocks I see them; from the hills I watch them. Indeed, a nation that lives alone, and it will not be reckoned among the nations.

Then Balaam looked on Amalek and delivered this oracle: "Amalek was the first of the nations, but his end will be that he will perish."

Then the Lord will scatter you among the peoples and there will be very few of you among the nations where the Lord will drive you.

to dispossess nations greater and stronger than you and brought you here this day to give you their land as your property.

When the Lord your God brings you to the land that you are going to occupy and forces out many nations before you -- Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites, seven nations more numerous and powerful than you --

If you think, "These nations are more numerous than I -- how can I dispossess them?"

He, the God who leads you, will expel the nations little by little. You will not be allowed to destroy them all at once lest the wild animals overrun you.

Just like the nations the Lord is about to destroy from your sight, so he will do to you because you would not obey him.

Listen, Israel: Today you are about to cross the Jordan so you can dispossess the nations there, people greater and stronger than you who live in large cities with extremely high fortifications.

Do not think to yourself after the Lord your God has driven them out before you, "Because of my own righteousness the Lord has brought me here to possess this land." It is because of the wickedness of these nations that the Lord is driving them out ahead of you.

It is not because of your righteousness, or even your inner uprightness, that you have come here to possess their land. Instead, because of the wickedness of these nations the Lord your God is driving them out ahead of you in order to confirm the promise he made on oath to your ancestors, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

then he will drive out all these nations ahead of you, and you will dispossess nations greater and stronger than you.

You must by all means destroy all the places where the nations you are about to dispossess worship their gods -- on the high mountains and hills and under every leafy tree.

When the Lord your God eliminates the nations from the place where you are headed and you dispossess them, you will settle down in their land.

After they have been destroyed from your presence, be careful not to be ensnared like they are; do not pursue their gods and say, "How do these nations serve their gods? I will do the same."

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

When you come to the land the Lord your God is giving you and take it over and live in it and then say, "I will select a king like all the nations surrounding me,"

When you enter the land the Lord your God is giving you, you must not learn the abhorrent practices of those nations.

Those nations that you are about to dispossess listen to omen readers and diviners, but the Lord your God has not given you permission to do such things.

When the Lord your God destroys the nations whose land he is about to give you and you dispossess them and settle in their cities and houses,

This is how you are to deal with all those cities located far from you, those that do not belong to these nearby nations.

Then he will elevate you above all the nations he has made and you will receive praise, fame, and honor. You will be a people holy to the Lord your God, as he has said.

"If you indeed obey the Lord your God and are careful to observe all his commandments I am giving you today, the Lord your God will elevate you above all the nations of the earth.

The Lord will open for you his good treasure house, the heavens, to give you rain for the land in its season and to bless all you do; you will lend to many nations but you will not borrow from any.

The Lord will scatter you among all nations, from one end of the earth to the other. There you will worship other gods that neither you nor your ancestors have known, gods of wood and stone.

Among those nations you will have no rest nor will there be a place of peaceful rest for the soles of your feet, for there the Lord will give you an anxious heart, failing eyesight, and a spirit of despair.

"(For you know how we lived in the land of Egypt and how we crossed through the nations as we traveled.

Beware that the heart of no man, woman, clan, or tribe among you turns away from the Lord our God today to pursue and serve the gods of those nations; beware that there is among you no root producing poisonous and bitter fruit.

Then all the nations will ask, "Why has the Lord done all this to this land? What is this fierce, heated display of anger all about?"

"When you have experienced all these things, both the blessings and the curses I have set before you, you will reflect upon them in all the nations where the Lord your God has banished you.

As for the Lord your God, he is about to cross over before you; he will destroy these nations before you and dispossess them. As for Joshua, he is about to cross before you just as the Lord has said.

When the Most High gave the nations their inheritance, when he divided up humankind, he set the boundaries of the peoples, according to the number of the heavenly assembly.

Cry out, O nations, with his people, for he will avenge his servants' blood; he will take vengeance against his enemies, and make atonement for his land and people.

He has done this so all the nations of the earth might recognize the Lord's power and so you might always obey the Lord your God."

You saw everything the Lord your God did to all these nations on your behalf, for the Lord your God fights for you.

See, I have parceled out to your tribes these remaining nations, from the Jordan to the Mediterranean Sea in the west, including all the nations I defeated.

or associate with these nations that remain near you. You must not invoke or make solemn declarations by the names of their gods! You must not worship or bow down to them!

"The Lord drove out from before you great and mighty nations; no one has been able to resist you to this very day.

But if you ever turn away and make alliances with these nations that remain near you, and intermarry with them and establish friendly relations with them,

know for certain that the Lord our God will no longer drive out these nations from before you. They will trap and ensnare you; they will be a whip that tears your sides and thorns that blind your eyes until you disappear from this good land the Lord your God gave you.

For the Lord our God took us and our fathers out of slavery in the land of Egypt and performed these awesome miracles before our very eyes. He continually protected us as we traveled and when we passed through nations.

The Lord drove out from before us all the nations, including the Amorites who lived in the land. So we too will worship the Lord, for he is our God!"

They abandoned the Lord God of their ancestors who brought them out of the land of Egypt. They followed other gods -- the gods of the nations who lived around them. They worshiped them and made the Lord angry.

So I will no longer remove before them any of the nations that Joshua left unconquered when he died.

Joshua left those nations to test Israel. I wanted to see whether or not the people would carefully walk in the path marked out by the Lord, as their ancestors were careful to do."

This is why the Lord permitted these nations to remain and did not conquer them immediately; he did not hand them over to Joshua.

These were the nations the Lord permitted to remain so he could use them to test Israel -- he wanted to test all those who had not experienced battle against the Canaanites.

He left those nations simply because he wanted to teach the subsequent generations of Israelites, who had not experienced the earlier battles, how to conduct holy war.

These were the nations: the five lords of the Philistines, all the Canaanites, the Sidonians, and the Hivites living in Mount Lebanon, from Mount Baal Hermon to Lebo-Hamath.

They said to him, "Look, you are old, and your sons don't follow your ways. So now appoint over us a king to lead us, just like all the other nations have."

We will be like all the other nations. Our king will judge us and lead us and fight our battles."

King David dedicated these things to the Lord, along with the dedicated silver and gold that he had taken from all the nations that he had subdued,

You rescue me from a hostile army; you preserve me as a leader of nations; people over whom I had no authority are now my subjects.

The one true God completely vindicates me; he makes nations submit to me.

So I will give you thanks, O Lord, before the nations! I will sing praises to you.

He was wiser than any man, including Ethan the Ezrahite or Heman, Calcol, and Darda, the sons of Mahol. He was famous in all the neighboring nations.

People from all nations came to hear Solomon's display of wisdom; they came from all the kings of the earth who heard about his wisdom.

Then listen from your heavenly dwelling place and answer all the prayers of the foreigners. Then all the nations of the earth will acknowledge your reputation, obey you like your people Israel do, and recognize that this temple I built belongs to you.

After all, you picked them out of all the nations of the earth to be your special possession, just as you, O sovereign Lord, announced through your servant Moses when you brought our ancestors out of Egypt."

Then all the nations of the earth will recognize that the Lord is the only genuine God.

then I will remove Israel from the land I have given them, I will abandon this temple I have consecrated with my presence, and Israel will be mocked and ridiculed among all the nations.

They came from nations about which the Lord had warned the Israelites, "You must not establish friendly relations with them! If you do, they will surely shift your allegiance to their gods." But Solomon was irresistibly attracted to them.

There were also male cultic prostitutes in the land. They committed the same horrible sins as the nations that the Lord had driven out from before the Israelites.

He followed in the footsteps of the kings of Israel. He passed his son through the fire, a horrible sin practiced by the nations whom the Lord drove out from before the Israelites.

they observed the practices of the nations whom the Lord had driven out from before Israel, and followed the example of the kings of Israel.

They burned incense on all the high places just like the nations whom the Lord had driven away from before them. Their evil practices made the Lord angry.

They rejected his rules, the covenant he had made with their ancestors, and the laws he had commanded them to obey. They paid allegiance to worthless idols, and so became worthless to the Lord. They copied the practices of the surrounding nations in blatant disregard of the Lord's command.

The king of Assyria was told, "The nations whom you deported and settled in the cities of Samaria do not know the requirements of the God of the land, so he has sent lions among them. They are killing the people because they do not know the requirements of the God of the land."

But each of these nations made its own gods and put them in the shrines on the high places that the people of Samaria had made. Each nation did this in the cities where they lived.

They were worshiping the Lord and at the same time serving their own gods in accordance with the practices of the nations from which they had been deported.

These nations are worshiping the Lord and at the same time serving their idols; their sons and grandsons do just as their fathers have done, to this very day.