How were the Israelites supposed to relate socially to the pagan people around them?
The Israelites were to remain a separated people, having no real social contact with the pagan nations around them and never intermarrying with anyone outside Israel. Though they could do business with them, socially they were to keep apart, and God never instructed them to proselytize or evangelize the Gentiles.
Les explains that the Israelites were His covenant people and were never to intermarry with anybody but those of the nation of Israel. They were to have no real social contact with the pagan people around them. Naturally, they had to do business with them and so forth, but socially they were to remain a separated people. Les emphasizes that God never instructed the Jew to go out and proselyte the Gentiles or to win them even to their religion. This was because God was dealing strictly with this covenant nation of people whom He was going to set aside and make different. Les notes that this background explains why the Jews were later upset when the apostle Paul began going to the Gentiles, and why Peter struggled, as seen in Galatians chapter 2, where he withdrew from eating with Gentile believers when fellow Jews came up from Jerusalem.