Deuteronomy 20

¹ When you go forth for battle against your enemies, and you see horses and chariots and a people more numerous than you, you should not fear them, for Yahweh your Elohim is with you, the One bringing you up from the country of Egypt. ² Then it will be as you approach to the battle that the priest will come close and speak to the people. ³ He will say to them: Hear, Israel! You are near today to the battle against your enemies. Let not your heart be timid, do not fear, do not be in nervous haste and do not be terrified because of their presence. ⁴ for Yahweh your Elohim is the One going with you to fight for you with your enemies and to save you. ⁵ And the superintendents will speak to the people, saying: Whoever the man be who has built a new house and has not dedicated it yet, may go and return to his house, lest he should die in the battle and another man should dedicate it. ⁶ And whoever the man be who has planted a vineyard and has not taken it yet for profane use may go and return to his house, lest he should die in the battle and another man should take it for profane use. ⁷ And whoever the man be who has betrothed a woman and has not taken her yet, may go and return to his house, lest he should die in the battle and another man should take her. ⁸ Then the superintendents will continue to speak to the people and say: Whoever the man be who is fearful and timid of heart may go and return to his house so that the heart of his brothers may not be melted as his own heart is. ⁹ And it will come to be when the superintendents have finished speaking to the people that they will commit chiefs of the militia hosts at the head of the people. ¹⁰ When you come near to a city to fight against it then you should call to it for peace. ¹¹ And it will come to be if it should answer you with peace, and it opens up to you, then it will come to be that all the people who are being found in it shall become tributary to you, and they will serve you. ¹² Yet if it should not make peace with you but engages in battle with you, then you must besiege it. ¹³ When Yahweh your Elohim delivers it into your hand, then you will smite every adult male of it with the edge of the sword; ¹⁴ but the women, the little ones, the domestic beasts and all that is in the city, all its loot, you may plunder for yourself; and you may eat from the loot of your enemies which Yahweh your Elohim gives to you. ¹⁵ Thus shall you deal with all the cities which are the very farthest from you, those that are not of the cities of these nations. ¹⁶ But in the cities of these peoples which Yahweh your Elohim is giving to you as an allotment you shall not keep alive anything that has breath, ¹⁷ for you shall doom, yea doom them, the Hittite, the Amorite, the Canaanite, the Girgashite, the Perizzite, the Hivite and the Jebusite, just as Yahweh your Elohim had instructed you, ¹⁸ that they may not teach you to act according to all their abhorrences which they do for their elohim so that you might sin against Yahweh your Elohim. ¹⁹ When you besiege a city many days to battle against it to grab it, you shall bring ruin on no tree of it by wielding an axe against it; if you may eat of it, you shall not cut them down; for is the tree of the field a human to come before your face in the siege? ²⁰ But a tree that you know it is not a tree for food, you may bring ruin on it and cut it down, so you may build siege-works against the city which is engaging in battle with you until it comes down.