Deuteronomy 20

1When you go out to war against your enemies and see horses and chariots and an army larger than yours, do not be afraid of them, for Yahweh your God, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt, is with you.

2When you are about to go into battle, the priest is to come forward and speak to the army.

3He is to say to them, ‘Hear, Israel: today you are going into battle against your enemies. Do not lose heart. Do not be afraid, do not panic, and do not be terrified of them,

4for Yahweh your God is the one who goes with you to fight for you against your enemies and to save you.’

5Then the officers are to say to the army, ‘Is there any man here who has built a new house and not yet dedicated it? Let him go back home, or he may die in battle and someone else will dedicate it.

6Is there any man who has planted a vineyard and not yet enjoyed its fruit? Let him go back home, or he may die in battle and someone else will enjoy it.

7Is there any man who is engaged to a woman and has not yet married her? Let him go back home, or he may die in battle and someone else will marry her.’

8The officers are to speak further to the army and say, ‘Is there any man who is afraid or fainthearted? Let him go back home, so that he does not make his brothers lose heart as he has.’

9When the officers have finished speaking to the army, they are to appoint commanders at the head of the troops.

10When you approach a city to fight against it, offer it terms of peace.

11If it answers you with peace and opens its gates to you, then all the people found in it are to become forced laborers for you and serve you.

12But if it does not make peace with you and instead makes war against you, then you are to besiege it.

13When Yahweh your God hands it over to you, you are to put all its males to the sword.

14But the women, the children, the livestock, and everything else in the city—all its plunder—you may take as spoil for yourself. You may enjoy the plunder of your enemies that Yahweh your God has given you.

15That is how you are to treat all the cities that are very far from you, which are not cities of the nations here.

16But in the cities of these peoples that Yahweh your God is giving you as an inheritance, do not leave alive anything that breathes.

17You must devote them to complete destruction—the Hittites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites—as Yahweh your God has commanded you,

18so that they will not teach you to do all the detestable things they have done for their gods, and so cause you to sin against Yahweh your God.

19When you besiege a city for a long time, fighting against it to capture it, do not destroy its trees by taking an ax to them. You may eat from them, but do not cut them down. Are the trees of the field human beings, that you should besiege them?

20Only the trees you know are not fruit trees may you destroy and cut down, to build siegeworks against the city that is making war with you, until it falls.