'Nations' in the Bible

from whom the coastal nations spread into their own lands and nations, each with their own language and family groups.

These are the families of Noah's sons, according to their records, by their nations. From these people, the nations on the earth spread out after the flood.

"Look, I've made a covenant with you. You will be the father of many nations.

Your name is no longer to be Abram. Instead your name will be Abraham, since I'll make you the father of many nations.

I'm going to cause you to have many descendants, and I'll bring nations from you. Kings will come from you.

I will bless her. Furthermore, I will give you a son from her. I will bless her, so that nations, kings, and people will come from her."

"since Abraham's descendants will become a great and powerful nation, and all the nations of the earth will be blessed through him?

Furthermore, through your descendants all the nations of the earth will be blessed, because you have obeyed my command."

"Two nations are in your womb," the LORD responded, "and two separate people will emerge. One people will be the stronger, and the older one will serve the younger."

I'll cause you to have as many descendants as the stars of the heavens, and I'll certainly give all these lands to your descendants. Later on, through your descendants all the nations of the earth will bless one another.

So God called his name Israel and also told him, "I am God Almighty. You are to be fruitful and multiply. You will become a nation in fact, an assembly of nations! Kings will come from you they'll emerge from your own loins!

In addition, all of the surrounding nations came to Joseph to buy grain from Egypt, because the famine had become severe throughout the world.

But his father refused. "I know," he said. "I know. He's going to produce a large nation, and he's going to be very great. However, his younger brother will become even greater than he, and his descendants will become a multitude of nations."

The scepter will not depart from Judah, nor a ruler's staff from between his feet, until the one comes, who owns them both, and to him will belong the allegiance of nations.

And now if you carefully obey me and keep my covenant, you are to be my special possession out of all the nations, because the whole earth belongs to me,

since I'm going to drive out nations before you, and enlarge your borders, and no one will covet your land, when you go up to appear in the presence of the LORD your God three times a year.

"You are not to defile yourselves by doing any of these things, since all of these nations that I'm casting out before you have defiled themselves this way.

So you are not to let the land vomit you up because of your uncleanness as it is vomiting the nations that were here before you.

You are not to live by the customs of the nations, whom I've cast away right in front of you. Because they did all of these things, I detested them.

"As for your male and maid slaves who will be with you, you may buy male and female slaves from among the nations.

"I'll scatter you among the nations and draw the sword after you so that your land becomes desolate and your towns become ruins.

"You won't have power to resist your enemies. You'll perish among the nations and the land of your enemies will consume you.

Instead, on account of them, I'll remember my covenant with their ancestors when I brought them out of the land of Egypt right before the eyes of the nations, so that I could be their God. I am the LORD."

But if you slaughter this people all at the same time, then the nations who heard about your fame will say,

I saw them from the top of the rocks. I watched them from the hills. Truly this is a people that lives by itself and doesn't matter among the nations.

God is bringing them out of Egypt with the strength of an ox. He'll devour enemy nations, break their bones, and impale them with arrows.

Moreover, the LORD will scatter you among the nations, and you'll be fewer in number in the nations where the LORD your God will drive you.

in order to drive out nations that are stronger and more powerful than you, to bring you into this land, and to give you their land as an inheritance, as it is today.

Do not follow other gods, from the gods of the nations around you.

"When the LORD your God brings you into the land that you are entering to possess, he will drive out many nations before you: the Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites, seven nations who are more numerous and stronger than you.

because you are a holy people to the LORD your God. The LORD your God chose you to be his people, his treasured possession from all the nations on the face of the earth."

"It wasn't because you were more numerous than other people of the earth that the LORD committed himself to you and chose you. In fact, you were the least numerous of all the nations.

You'll be blessed among all the nations. There'll be no infertility among you, not even among your herds.

"You may say to yourselves, "These nations are more numerous than we are. How can we dispossess them?'

He slowly will dislodge these nations before you, but he won't destroy them quickly, so the wild animals won't multiply around you.

Just like the nations whom the LORD destroyed before you, so will you be destroyed, because you did not listen to the voice of the LORD your God."

"Listen, Israel! Today you are about to cross the Jordan to enter and dispossess greater and mightier nations than you, who live in large cities that are fortified to the sky.

On the contrary, it is because of the wickedness of these nations that the LORD is dispossessing them before you to confirm what the LORD promised by an oath to your ancestors Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

yet the LORD committed himself to love your ancestors and did so! He chose you their descendants after them from all the nations, as it is today.

then the LORD will dispossess all these nations before you and you'll dispossess nations that are even greater and stronger than you.

Be sure you destroy there all the places where the nations that you're going to dispossess serve their gods upon the high mountains and hills and under every leafy tree.

"When the LORD your God eliminates the nations that you are about to dispossess so you can live in their land,

after they have been destroyed in your sight, be careful not to be ensnared as they were. Otherwise, you will seek their gods and ask yourselves, "How do these nations serve their gods? I will do likewise.'

because you are a holy people to the LORD your God, and the LORD chose to make you his precious possession from among all the nations of the earth."

For the LORD your God will bless you just as he promised. You are to lend to many nations but not borrow. Also, you will rule over many nations, but they will not rule over you."

"When you have come to the land that the LORD your God is about to give you, and you have taken possession of it, and have settled in it, then you will say, "I will appoint a king over me like all the nations around me.'

"When you enter the land that the LORD your God is about to give you, don't learn the detestable practices of those nations there.

because those nations that you are about to dispossess listen to those who practice witchcraft and divination. But the LORD does not allow you to act this way."

"When the LORD your God destroys those nations whose lands he is about to give you, you must dispossess them and live in their cities and houses.

Do this to all the cities that are distant from you that is, to those cities that are not in neighboring nations."

"You are not to leave even one person alive in the cities of these nations that the LORD your God is about to give you as an inheritance.

so he may elevate you far above all the nations that he has made. Then you will live to the praise, fame, and glory of God, and so be a nation that is holy to the LORD your God, as he has promised."

"Indeed, if you diligently obey the LORD your God to carry out all his commands that I'm giving you today, then the LORD your God will set you high above all the nations of the earth.

"The LORD will open his rich treasury, the heavens, to release rain upon your land in season and bless everything you undertake so that you'll lend to many nations but won't borrow.

"He'll scatter you among the nations from one end of the earth to the other, and there you'll serve other gods made of wood and stone, which neither you nor your ancestors have known.

Among those nations you'll have no rest. There'll be no resting place for the soles of your feet. Instead, the LORD will give you an anxious heart, failing eyesight, and a despairing spirit.

"Now, you know how we lived in the land of Egypt and how we traveled through the territory of other nations.

Be alert so there is no man, woman, family, or a tribe whose heart is turning away from the LORD your God to go and serve the gods of those nations. Be alert so there will be no root among you that produces poisonous and bitter fruit,

All the nations will ask, "Why did the LORD do this to this land? What is the meaning of this fierce and great anger?'

"When all these things happen to you both the blessings and the curses that I've presented to you and you take them seriously in all the nations where the LORD your God will deport you,

then the LORD your God will restore your fortunes and will show compassion to you. He will gather you from among the nations where he had scattered you.

and the LORD told me, "You won't be crossing the Jordan River.' But the LORD your God is crossing over before you. He will destroy these nations in front of you and you will dispossess them. As for Joshua, he will cross over before you, just as the LORD promised.

When the Most High gave nations as their inheritance, when he separated the human race, he set boundaries for the people according to the number of the children of God.

"Sing for joy, nations! Sing for joy, people who belong to him! For he'll avenge the blood of his servants, turn on his adversary, and cleanse both his land and his people."

They will call the nations to the mountain, and there they will offer righteous sacrifices, for they'll draw from the abundance of the sea and from the hidden treasures of the sand."

You have seen everything that the LORD your God has done to all of these nations on your behalf, because it has been the LORD your God who has been fighting on your behalf.

Now look, I have allocated these nations that remain as an inheritance for your tribes, including all of the nations that I have eliminated, from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea to the west.

That way, you will not mingle with those nations that remain among you, nor mention the name of their gods, nor make oaths by them, nor serve them, nor worship them.

because the LORD has expelled great and strong nations ahead of you. Now as for you, not a single man has been able to oppose you right to this day.

because if you ever turn back and cling to those who remain of these nations by intermarrying with them and associating one with another,

know for certain that the LORD your God will not continue to drive out these nations ahead of you. Instead, they will be a snare and a trap for you, a whip to your backs, and thorns in your eyes, until you perish from this good land that the LORD your God has given you.

since the LORD our God is the one who brought us and our ancestors up from the land of Egypt, from a life of slavery. He did those great things right in front of us, preserving us along the way that we traveled and among all the nations through whose territory we passed.

They abandoned the LORD God of their ancestors, who had brought them out of the land of Egypt. They followed other gods from among the gods of the nations who surrounded them. They bowed down in worship of them, and by doing so angered the LORD.

I'm also going to stop expelling any of the nations that remained after Joshua died.

So the LORD caused those nations to remain and did not expel them quickly. He did not give them into Joshua's control.

Here's a list of nations that the LORD caused to remain in order to test Israel (that is, everyone who had not gained any battle experience in Canaan)

These nations included the five lords of the Philistines, all of the Canaanites, the Sidonians, and the Hivites who lived in Mount Baal-hermon as far as Lebo-hamath.

They told him, "Look, you're old, and your sons don't follow your example. So appoint a king to govern us like all the other nations."

We, too, will be like all the nations! Our king will govern us and go out before us to fight our battles."

"And who is like your people, like Israel, the one nation on earth that God went out to redeem as a people for himself, to make a name for himself, and to carry out for them great and awe-inspiring accomplishments, driving out nations and their gods in front of your people, whom you redeemed to yourself from Egypt?

and King David dedicated them to the LORD, along with the silver and gold that had been dedicated from all the nations that he had conquered,

You delivered me from civil war among my own people. You preserved me as head of the nations. People whom I had never known served me!

Because of all of this I will praise you among the nations, LORD, and I will sing praises to your name!

His reputation was known throughout the surrounding nations. Solomon wrote 3,000 proverbs and 1,005 songs.

all of them from nations that the LORD had ordered the Israelis, "You are not to associate with them and they are not to associate with you, because they will most certainly turn your affections away to follow their gods." Solomon became deeply attached to them by falling in love.

They even maintained male shrine prostitutes throughout the land, and imitated every detestable practice that the nations practiced whom the LORD had expelled in front of the Israelis.

and because they were following the rules of the nations whom the LORD had expelled before the Israelis and that the kings of Israel had practiced.

where they made offerings on all the high places, as did the nations whom the LORD had expelled before them. They also practiced other wickedness, provoking the LORD to become angry,

They rejected the LORD's statutes, the covenant that he had made with their ancestors, and his warnings that he gave them. They pursued meaninglessness and became meaningless themselves as they followed the lifestyles of the nations that surrounded them, a practice that the LORD had warned them not to do.

As a result, they reported to the king of Assyria, "Because the nations whom you exiled to live in the cities of Samaria don't know the law of the god of the land, he has sent lions among them. Look how the lions are killing them, because they don't know the law of the god of the land!"

While they continued to fear the LORD, they served their own gods, following the custom of the nations whom they had carried away from there.

These nations feared the LORD and also served their carved images. Their descendants did the same thing, as did their grandchildren. Just as their ancestors had done, they also do the same thing to this day.

"But don't listen to Hezekiah when he misleads you by saying, "The LORD will deliver us!" Has any of the gods of the nations delivered his land from control by the king of Assyria?

Did the gods of those nations whom my ancestors destroyed deliver them, including Gozan, Haran, Rezeph, and Eden's descendants in Telassar?

Truly, LORD, the kings of Assyria have devastated nations and their territories,

He did what the LORD considered to be evil, following the despicable practices of the nations whom the LORD had expelled in full view of the people of Israel.

But they would not listen. Manasseh led them astray to practice more evil than the nations whom the LORD had destroyed in the presence of the Israelis.

But they were unfaithful to the God of their ancestors by prostituting themselves to the gods of the nations of the land, whom God had exterminated right in front of them.

Then David's reputation spread through all of the neighboring countries, and the LORD caused all nations to be afraid of David.

Declare his glory among the nations, and his miraculous deeds to all people,