YHWH does not consider tolerance of worship of false gods to be a virtue. This may come as quite a hard message for many who are desensitized by worldly influences which constantly preach tolerance of all types of sin as if it is a virtue.
1“When the LORD your God brings you into the land where you are entering to possess it, and clears away many nations before you, the Hittites and the Girgashites and the Amorites and the Canaanites and the Perizzites and the Hivites and the Jebusites, seven nations greater and stronger than you, 2and when the LORD your God delivers them before you and you defeat them, then you shall utterly destroy them. You shall make no covenant with them and show no favor to them. 3“Furthermore, you shall not intermarry with them; you shall not give your daughters to their sons, nor shall you take their daughters for your sons. 4“For they will turn your sons away from following Me to serve other gods; then the anger of the LORD will be kindled against you and He will quickly destroy you. 5“But thus you shall do to them: you shall tear down their altars, and smash their sacred pillars, and hew down their Asherim, and burn their graven images with fire. 6“For you are a holy people to the LORD your God; the LORD your God has chosen you to be a people for His own possession out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth.
YHWH inherently recognizes and warns His people not to intermarry and not to accept their false gods and worship practices. He instructs His people to tear down even their altars and pillars and idols.
Why?
Because these things are dedicated to sinful worship of false gods. Their continued existence, certainly with intermarriage, will draw some of YHWH’s people away from Him into false worship of worthless things. It separates YHWH from His people.
The same is still true today. Tolerating sin generally, and tolerating the worship of false religions or gods specifically, is not a virtue, but rather a trap. It separates YHWH from His people and leads to destruction for those individuals. We do not help them by tolerating and accepting their false beliefs and idols. We certainly don’t help those that are to come later by leaving all the pagan temples and idols around for them to consider in the future.
YHWH instructed His people rather directly and boldly to be set apart from these things and maintain a very important separation from those things which would in turn separate YHWH from His people. He did so for their benefit, not His. We should apply this principle still today with vigilance.