Deuteronomy 20

1. “When you go out to battle against your enemies and see horses and chariots, a people more than you, do not be afraid of them; for the LORD your God is with you Who brought you up out of the land of Egypt.

2. And it shall be, when you come near to the battle, the priest shall go up and speak to the people,

3. And shall say to them, ‘Hear, O Israel, today you go up to battle against your enemies. Do not let your hearts faint, do not fear, and do not tremble, neither be terrified before their faces;

4. For the LORD your God is He Who goes with you to fight for you against your enemies to save you.’

5. And the officers shall speak to the people saying, ‘Who is the man that has built a new house and has not dedicated it? Let him go and return to his house, lest he die in the battle and another man dedicate it.

6. And who is the man that has planted a vineyard and has not used its fruits? Let him go and return to his house, lest he die in the battle and another man use its fruits.

7. And who is the man that has become engaged to a wife and has not taken her? Let him go and return to his house, lest he die in the battle and another man take her.’

8. And the officers shall speak further to the people, and they shall say, ‘Who is the man that is fearful and fainthearted? Let him go and return to his house, lest his brethren’s heart faint as well as his heart.’

9. And it shall be, when the officers have made an end of speaking to the people, they shall make captains of the armies to lead the people.

10. When you come near a city to fight against it, then proclaim peace to it.

11. And it shall be, if it makes the answer of peace and opens to you, then all the people found in it shall be forced laborers to you, and they shall serve you.

12. But if it will make no peace with you, but will make war against you, then you shall besiege it.

13. And when the LORD your God has delivered it into your hands, you shall strike every male of it with the edge of the sword.

14. But the women, and the little ones, and the animals, and all that is in the city, all the spoil of it, you shall take to yourself. And you shall eat the spoil of your enemies, which the LORD your God has given you.

15. So you shall do to all the cities which are very far off from you, which are not of the cities of these nations.

16. But of the cities of these people, which the LORD your God gives you for an inheritance, you shall save alive nothing that breathes.

17. But you shall utterly destroy them: the Hittites, and the Amorites, the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, the Hivites and the Jebusites; as the LORD your God has commanded you,

18. So that they may not teach you to do according to all their abominations which they have done to their gods. So you would sin against the LORD your God.

19. When you shall besiege a city a long time in making war against it to take it, you shall not destroy its trees by forcing an axe against them. For you may eat of them, and you shall not cut them down. For is the tree of the field a man that it should go before you to lay siege?

20. Only the trees which you know that they are not trees for food, you shall destroy and cut them down. And you shall build bulwarks against the city that makes war with you until it is subdued.”