And he said, "Behold, I am making a covenant. Before all your people I will do marvels, such as have not been created in all the earth or in any nation. And all the people among whom you are shall see the work of the LORD, for it is an awesome thing that I will do with you. "Observe what I command you this day. Behold, I will drive out before you the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. Take care, lest you make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land to which you go, lest it become a snare in your midst. You shall tear down their altars and break their pillars and cut down their Asherim (for you shall worship no other god, for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God), lest you make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, and when they whore after their gods and sacrifice to their gods and you are invited, you eat of his sacrifice, and you take of their daughters for your sons, and their daughters whore after their gods and make your sons whore after their gods. "You shall not make for yourself any gods of cast metal.
Exodus 34:10-17
But, although the covenant is renewed by sheer grace, it lays inexorable demands upon the covenanted people, as can be seen in 12-17. These verses bear witness to the separation that must mark men's lives when they are in earnest with the Lord. That this particular kind of warning given here was necessary is shown by the ease with which the Israelites had corrupted themselves with the golden calf, with only the influence of their Egyptian contact in the past. If influence could do this to them, what would direct contact with the Canaanites do? God knew what was in them, knew too that grace must wage a relentless warfare against the lawless powers of darkness within man that seek to enthrall him and drag him down. Let us see, then, a gospel outline in all this. God's grace in Christ is unconditioned, and the summons to holiness of life is not the condition of salvation, but its fruit; but God intends that the fruit of all covenanted relationships should be seen, and 'every branch that beareth not fruit He taketh away' (John 15:2)