Know therefore …: now comes the assurance. Yahweh will enable the Israelites to defeat and drive out these giants.

For God as a devouring fire, see 4.24. For the LORD your God see 1.6.

He will destroy them: see 2.12. There is a series of four verbs, the first two about God: destroy them and subdue them, that is, “conquer them,” “defeat them.” It may be more natural to reverse the two verbs: “will defeat and destroy them” (see Revised English Bible); Good News Translation combines the two verbs into one, but it is better to use two, if it is not unnatural style in the language.

Before you: this is better translated by Good News Translation “as you advance.”

You shall drive them out: this translates the same Hebrew verb used in verse 1, “dispossess.” We may also translate as “cause them to leave [the land].”

Make them perish quickly: see the verb in 8.19.

As the LORD has promised you: it is better to shift this nearer to the beginning of the sentence: “… as the LORD has promised you, he will go ahead of you like a raging fire burning everything in its path. He will defeat and destroy them….”

Quoted with permission from Bratcher, Robert G. and Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on Deuteronomy. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2000. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .