Old Testament

New Testament

Deuteronomy 20:11-19 Amplified Bible (AMP)

11. And if that city makes an answer of peace to you and opens to you, then all the people found in it shall be tributary to you and they shall serve you.

12. But if it refuses to make peace with you and fights against you, then you shall besiege it.

13. And when the Lord your God has given it into your hands, you shall smite every male there with the edge of the sword.

14. But the women, the little ones, the beasts, and all that is in the city, all the spoil in it, you shall take for yourselves; and you shall use the spoil of your enemies which the Lord your God has given you.

15. So shall you treat all the cities that are very far off from you, that do not belong to the cities of these nations.

16. But in the cities of these people which the Lord your God gives you for an inheritance, you shall save alive nothing that breathes.

17. But you shall utterly exterminate them, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, as the Lord your God has commanded you,

18. So that they may not teach you all the abominable practices they have carried on for their gods, and so cause you to sin against the Lord your God.

19. When you besiege a city for a long time, making war against it to take it, you shall not destroy its trees by using an ax on them, for you can eat their fruit; you must not cut them down, for is the tree of the field a man, that it should be besieged by you?

Read complete chapter Deuteronomy 20