World English Bible

Deuteronomy 20:12-19 World English Bible (WEB)

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

13. When Yahweh your God delivers it into your hand, you shall strike every male of it with the edge of the sword;

14. but the women, the little ones, the livestock, and all that is in the city, even all its plunder, you shall take for plunder for yourself. You may use the plunder of your enemies, which Yahweh your God has given you.

15. Thus 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 peoples, that Yahweh your God gives you for an inheritance, you shall save alive nothing that breathes;

17. but you shall utterly destroy them: the Hittite, the Amorite, the Canaanite, the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite; as Yahweh your God has commanded you;

18. that they not teach you to follow all their abominations, which they have done to their gods; so would you sin against Yahweh 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 wielding an ax against them; for you may eat of them. You shall not cut them down; for is the tree of the field man, that it should be besieged by you?