Numbers 33: The Lord’s Command To Conquer Canaan 50 While Israel was camped in the lowlands of Moab across the Jordan River from Jericho, the Lord told Moses 51 to give the people of Israel this message: When you cross the Jordan River and enter Canaan, 52 you must force out the people living there. Destroy their idols and tear down their altars. 53 Then settle in the land—I have given it to you as your own. 55 If you don’t force out all the people there, they will be like pointed sticks in your eyes and thorns in your back. They will always be trouble for you, 56 and I will treat you as cruelly as I planned on treating them.
___________________________
The last statement from God to the Jews is a warning that unless they got rid of the indigenous population completely that God would turn his anger against his own people. What would anybody expect the Jews to do: ignore the commands from their God and face punishment or just do what their God tells them to do and remove the indigenous population from their land?