◀- Deuteronomy 20
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Laws of Warfare
(1) "When you go out to battle against your enemies, and see horses, and chariots, and 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) It shall be, when YOU come near the battle, that the priest shall approach and speak to the people,
(3) and shall say to them, 'Hear, O Israel, YOU approach this day to battle against YOUR enemies; do not let YOUR hearts faint, do not fear, and do not tremble, neither be terrified because of them;
(4) For the LORD YOUR God is he who goes with YOU, to fight for YOU against YOUR enemies, to save YOU.'
Who Are To Be Dismissed From War
(5) Then the officers shall speak to the people, saying, 'What man is there who 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 what man is there who has planted a vineyard, and has not eaten of it? Let him also go and return to his house, lest he die in the battle, and another man eat of it.
(7) What man is there who has betrothed 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) The officers shall speak further to the people, and they shall say, 'What man is there who 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 finished speaking to the people, that they shall make captains of the armies to lead the people.
Cities That Accept or Refuse Peace
(10) When you go near a city to fight against it, then proclaim peace to it.
(11) And it shall be, if it agrees with you with an answer of peace, and opens to you, then it shall be, that all the people who are found in it shall be your forced laborers, and they shall serve you.
(12) And if it will not make 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 in 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 plunder of it, shall you take for yourself, and you shall eat the plunder of your enemies, which the LORD 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.
Cities to be Utterly Destroy
(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, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites; as the LORD your God has commanded you,
(18) that they not teach YOU to follow after all their abominations, which they have done to their gods, so YOU would sin against the LORD YOUR God.
Friut Trees Must not be Destroyed
(19) When you shall besiege a city a long time, by making war against it to take it, you shall not destroy the trees of it by wielding 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) to enter in the siege?
(20) Only the trees which you know are not trees for food, you shall destroy and cut them down, and you shall use them to build fortresses against the city that makes war with you, until it is subdued.