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you go out to war against your enemies and see horses and chariots and an army larger than yours, do not be afraid of them, for the Lord your God, who brought you up from the land of Egypt, is with you. 2 When you are about to go into battle, the priest shall come forward and address the troops. 3 He shall say to them: ‘Hear, O Israel, today you are going into battle against your enemies. Do not be fainthearted or afraid, and do not panic, or be terrified because of them; 4 for the Lord your God is the One who goes with you, to fight for you against your enemies to give you victory’.
5 “Then the officers shall address the troops, saying: ‘Is there any man who has built a new house and has not dedicated it? Let him depart and return to his house, for he might die in the battle and another man dedicate it. 6 Or is there any man who has planted a vineyard and not yet enjoyed its fruit? Let him depart and return to his house, or he might die in the battle and another man enjoy its fruit. 7 Or is there any man who has become engaged to a woman and has not married her? Let him depart and return to his house, or he might die in the battle and another man marry her’. 8 Then the officers shall speak further to the troops and say, ‘Is there any man who is fearful and faint-hearted? Let him depart and return to his house, or he might make the hearts of his brothers faint like his own heart’. 9 When the officers have finished speaking to the troops, then they shall appoint military commanders to lead them.
10 “When you approach the city to fight against it, then offer terms of peace to it. 11 And if they accept your terms of peace and open their gates to you, all the people who are found in it shall become subject to forced labour and serve you. 12 However, if they will not make peace with you but engage in war against you, then you are to lay siege to it. 13 Then when the Lord your God delivers it into your hands, you must strike down all the men in it with the sword. 14 But the women, the children, the livestock, and everything else that is in the city—all its spoil—you may take all this as plunder for yourselves. Then you may enjoy the plunder of your enemies that the Lord your God has given you. 15 This is how you must treat all the cities that are far away from you, which are not cities of the nations here.
16 “But in the cities of these peoples that the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance, you must not leave anything alive that breathes. 17 You must completely destroy them—the Hittites, the Amorites, the Canananites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites—just as the Lord your God has commanded you. 18 Otherwise they will teach you to do according to all the detestable things that they do for their gods, and you will sin against the Lord your God.
19 “When you lay siege to a city for a long time, making war against it to capture it, you must not destroy its trees by putting an axe to them. You may eat from them, but do not cut them down. Are the trees in the field people, so that they should be besieged by you? 20 Only the trees that you know do not produce food you may cut down and destroy, so that you can use them to build siegeworks against the city that is making war against you, until it falls.”