The Lord is to be the only one we serve. At the time the nations around Israel had many other gods, and these would be visible in temples and the like. They had to be careful not to follow these gods. Today there are not many "visible gods", though there are other religions. We must not follow other religions. This does not mean we treat people who follow these religions as enemies. As Paul says, our battle is not against flesh and blood. The people who follow Islam or Buddha or whatever are valuable human beings, made in God's image, who Jesus died for.
While our society may not have visible gods, there are many ways of our secular society that we need to beware of. We are to take the Word of God as the lamp to our feet, showing us the way to go.
The Lord is a jealous God. We must worship only Him, and no other. Now atheists paint this as a negative, sometimes as a sign of God's pettiness (given that atheists say God doesn't exist, they do spend an awful lot of time worrying about His attributes!). This is not so. Why is God jealous and why is it right that He is so? There are many reasons for this, and here are just a few. First we are in a covenant relationship with Him, not a casual relationship. When a man and woman get married they are committed to each other, they must forsake all others. We are in a committed relationship with God, so must do nothing to threaten that relationship. Secondly it is for our good. God is the only One who gives life, He is the only one who saves us. If we turn to any other god or thing then we are doing ourselves harm. It is like a doctor seeing a patient turn to some quack cure, when they know that the medicine they are prescribing is working. The doctor would be angry because of the harm he or she saw the patient doing to themselves.
Instead, they are to follow the ways of the Lord, and so they would thrust out the enemies from the land. Trusting only in God is for our good.
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