Jubilee2000 - Deuteronomy - 20

20:1  When thou goest out to battle against thine enemies and seest horses and chariots [and] a people more than thou, do not be afraid of them; for the LORD thy God [is] with thee, who brought thee up out of the land of Egypt.

20:2  And it shall be, when ye are come near unto the battle that the priest shall approach and speak unto the people

20:3  and shall say unto them, Hear, O Israel, ye approach this day unto battle against your enemies; let not your hearts faint, fear not, and do not tremble, neither be ye terrified because of them,

20:4  for the LORD your God [is] he that goes with you to fight for you against your enemies, to save you.

20:5  And the officers shall speak unto the people, saying, What man [is there] that has built a new house and has not dedicated it? Let him go and return to his house lest peradventure he die in the battle and another man dedicate it.

20:6  And who has planted a vineyard and has not [yet] eaten of it? Let him [also] go and return unto his house lest peradventure he die in the battle and another man eat of it.

20:7  And what man [is there] that has betrothed a wife and has not taken her? Let him go and return unto his house lest peradventure he die in the battle and another man take her.

20:8  And the officers shall speak further unto the people, and they shall say, What man [is there that is] fearful and a coward at heart? Let him go and return unto his house that he not cause his brethren's hearts to become as his heart.

20:9  And it shall be when the officers have finished speaking unto the people that the captains of the armies shall lead before the people.

20:10  When thou comest near to a city to fight against it, then proclaim peace unto it.

20:11  And it shall be, if it makes thee an answer of peace and opens unto thee, [that] all the people [that are] found therein shall be tributaries unto thee, and they shall serve thee.

20:12  And if it will make no peace with thee but will make war against thee, and if thou should besiege it,

20:13  and if the LORD thy God should deliver it into thine hands, then thou shalt smite every male thereof with the edge of the sword.

20:14  Only the women and the little ones and the animals and all that is in the city, all the spoil thereof, shalt thou take unto thyself; and thou shalt eat of the spoil of thine enemies, which the LORD thy God has given thee.

20:15  Thus shalt thou do unto all the cities [which are] very far off from thee, which [are] not of the cities of these Gentiles.

20:16  Only of the cities of these peoples, which the LORD thy God gives thee [for] an inheritance, thou shalt save alive nothing that breathes;

20:17  but thou shalt utterly destroy them: the Hittite and the Amorite, the Canaanite and the Perizzite, the Hivite and the Jebusite, as the LORD thy God has commanded thee,

20:18  that they not teach you to do after all their abominations, which they do unto their gods, lest ye should sin against the LORD your God.

20:19  When thou shalt besiege a city a long time, in making war against it to take it, thou shalt not destroy the trees thereof by forcing an axe against them, for thou may eat of them; and thou shalt not cut them down (for the tree of the field [is] man's [life]) to employ [them] in the siege.

20:20  Only the trees which thou knowest that they [are] not trees for food, thou shalt destroy and cut them down; and thou shalt build bulwarks against the city that makes war with thee, until it is subdued.: