Going out to war
1When you go out to war against your enemies and see horses, chariots, and an army greater than yours, do not be afraid of them, for Yahweh your God, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt, is with you. 2When you are about to go into battle, the priest is to come forward and address the army. 3He is to say: “Hear, Israel: today you are about to go into battle against your enemies. Do not lose heart. Do not be afraid, or panic, or be terrified because of them, 4for Yahweh your God goes with you to fight for you against your enemies and to give you victory.” 5Then the officials are to say to the army: “Has anyone built a new house and not yet dedicated it? Let him go back home, or he may die in battle and someone else dedicate it. 6Has anyone planted a vineyard and not yet enjoyed its fruit? Let him go back home, or he may die in battle and someone else enjoy it. 7Has anyone become engaged to a woman and not yet married her? Let him go back home, or he may die in battle and someone else marry her.” 8Then the officials are to add: “Is anyone afraid or fainthearted? Let him go back home, so that his brothers’ hearts will not melt like his own.” 9When the officials have finished speaking to the army, they are to appoint commanders over it.
Terms of peace, or a city devoted to destruction
10When you approach a city to fight against it, first offer it terms of peace. 11If it accepts and opens its gates to you, all the people in it are to become forced laborers for you and serve you. 12But if it does not make peace with you and instead makes war against you, lay siege to it, 13and when Yahweh your God delivers it into your hand, strike down every male in it with the sword. 14But the women, the children, the livestock, and everything else in the city — all its plunder — you may take for yourselves. You may enjoy the plunder of your enemies that Yahweh your God has given you. 15This is how you are to treat all the cities that are very far from you, which do not belong to the nations nearby. 16But in the cities of the peoples Yahweh your God is giving you as an inheritance, do not leave anything alive that breathes. 17You must devote them to complete destruction — the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites — as Yahweh your God has commanded you, 18so that they do not teach you to imitate all the detestable things they have done for their gods, causing you to sin against Yahweh your God.
Trees spared in a siege
19If you besiege a city for a long time, fighting against it to capture it, do not destroy its trees by swinging an axe against them, for you may eat their fruit — do not cut them down. Are the trees of the field human, that you should besiege them too? 20Only the trees you know do not produce food may you destroy and cut down, to build siege works against the city that is waging war against you, until it falls.
