Deuteronomy
20
- When you go to war against your enemies
and see horses and chariots and an army greater than yours, do not be afraid
of them, because the LORD your God, who brought you up out of Egypt, will
be with you.
- When you are about to go into battle, the
priest shall come forward and address the army.
- He shall say: "Hear, O Israel, today
you are going into battle against your enemies. Do not be fainthearted or
afraid; do not be terrified or give way to panic before them.
- For the LORD your God is the one who goes
with you to fight for you against your enemies to give you victory."
- The officers shall say to the army: "Has
anyone built a new house and not dedicated it? Let him go home, or he may
die in battle and someone else may dedicate it.
- Has anyone planted a vineyard and not begun
to enjoy it? Let him go home, or he may die in battle and someone else enjoy
it.
- Has anyone become pledged to a woman and
not married her? Let him go home, or he may die in battle and someone else
marry her."
- Then the officers shall add, "Is any
man afraid or fainthearted? Let him go home so that his brothers will not
become disheartened too."
- When the officers have finished speaking
to the army, they shall appoint commanders over it.
- When you march up to attack a city, make
its people an offer of peace.
- If they accept and open their gates, all
the people in it shall be subject to forced labor and shall work for you.
- If they refuse to make peace and they engage
you in battle, lay siege to that city.
- When the LORD your God delivers it into
your hand, put to the sword all the men in it.
- As for the women, the children, the livestock
and everything else in the city, you may take these as plunder for yourselves.
And you may use the plunder the LORD your God gives you from your enemies.
- This is how you are to treat all the cities
that are at a distance from you and do not belong to the nations nearby.
- However, in the cities of the nations the
LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance, do not leave alive anything
that breathes.
- Completely destroy them--the Hittites, Amorites,
Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites -- as the LORD your God has
commanded you.
- Otherwise, they will teach you to follow
all the detestable things they do in worshiping their gods, and you will sin
against the LORD your God.
- When you lay siege to a city for a long
time, fighting against it to capture it, do not destroy its trees by putting
an ax to them, because you can eat their fruit. Do not cut them down. Are
the trees of the field people, that you should besiege them?
- However, you may cut down trees that you
know are not fruit trees and use them to build siege works until the city
at war with you falls.
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