Laws Concerning War with Distant Enemies
1When you go to war against your enemies and see chariotry and troops who outnumber you, do not be afraid of them, for the
2As you move forward for battle, the priest will approach and say to the soldiers,
3“Listen, Israel! Today you are moving forward to do battle with your enemies. Do not be fainthearted. Do not fear and tremble or be terrified because of them,
4for the
5Moreover, the officers are to say to the troops, “Who among you has built a new house and not dedicated it? He may go home, lest he die in battle and someone else dedicate it.
6Or who among you has planted a vineyard and not benefited from it? He may go home, lest he die in battle and someone else benefit from it.
7Or who among you has become engaged to a woman but has not married her? He may go home, lest he die in battle and someone else marry her.”
8In addition, the officers are to say to the troops, “Who among you is afraid and fainthearted? He may go home so that he will not make his fellow soldier’s heart as fearful as his own.”
9Then, when the officers have finished speaking, they must appoint unit commanders to lead the troops.
10When you approach a city to wage war against it, offer it terms of peace.
11If it accepts your terms and submits to you, all the people found in it will become your slaves.
12If it does not accept terms of peace but makes war with you, then you are to lay siege to it.
13The
14However, the women, little children, cattle, and anything else in the city – all its plunder – you may take for yourselves as spoil. You may take from your enemies the plunder that the
15This is how you are to deal with all those cities located far from you, those that do not belong to these nearby nations.
Laws Concerning War with Canaanite Nations
16As for the cities of these peoples that the
17Instead you must utterly annihilate them – the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites – just as the
18so that they cannot teach you all the abhorrent ways they worship their gods, causing you to sin against the
19If you besiege a city for a long time while attempting to capture it, you must not chop down its trees, for you may eat fruit from them and should not cut them down. A tree in the field is not human that you should besiege it!
20However, you may chop down any tree you know is not suitable for food, and you may use it to build siege works against the city that is making war with you until that city falls.
<< Deuteronomy 20 >>
