15. This is what you must do to all the cities that are far away which don’t belong to the nations nearby.
16. However, you must not spare anyone’s life in the cities of these nations that the Lord your God is giving you as your property.
17. You must claim the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites for the Lord and completely destroy them, as the Lord your God has commanded you.
18. Otherwise, they will teach you to do all the disgusting things they do for their gods, and you will sin against the Lord your God.
19. This is what you must do whenever you blockade a city for a long time in order to capture it in war. Don’t harm any of its fruit trees with an ax. You can eat the fruit. Never cut those trees down, because the trees of the field are not people you have come to blockade.
20. You may destroy trees that you know are not fruit trees. You may cut them down and use them in your blockade until you capture the city.