God wanted Israel, as He wants Christians, to learn to utterly abhor and detest anything that had the potential of coming between them and their God. The believer's enemies are typically internal rather than external, and they pose a powerful threat to spiritual health and progress.

The wise Christian will learn from the spiritual blunders of others.

The thoughtful believer recalls God's faithfulness in the past when confronted by any new threat. Part of spiritual maturity is strong sense of one's own history.

Although God's people find many successes in the world, they must not fall prey to a spirit of pride. We succeed not because of our moral superiority but because of the faithfulness of our divine intercessor and because of the great mercy of God.

Compassion for victims is sometimes forgotten in a misapplied concern for their oppressors and murderers.

Conversion is essential, but it is a beginning, not an end. The believer in Jesus Christ is not simply rescued from the penalty of his sin; he is redeemed to love God and his neighbor so that others might come to know him.

Believers should be more concerned for God's opinion of them than for what human opponents might do to their bodies.