 1 When you go out to battle against your enemies and see horses and chariots, a people more than you, do not be afraid of them. For the Lord your God is with you, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt. 2 When you come near to the battle, the priest shall go up and speak to the people. 3 He shall say to them, Hear O Israel. Today you go to battle against your enemies. Do not let your hearts faint. Do not fear. Do not tremble. Do not be terrified before them. 4 For the Lord your God is the one who goes with you to fight for you against your enemies to save you. 5 The officers shall speak to the people saying, Who is the man that has built a new house and has not dedicated it? Let him go and return to his house, lest he die in the battle and another man dedicate it. 6 Who is the man that has planted a vineyard and has not used its fruits? Let him go and return to his house, lest he die in the battle and another man use its fruits. 7 Who is the man that has become engaged to a wife and has not taken her? Let him go and return to his house, lest he die in the battle and another man take her. 8 The officers shall speak further to the people, and they shall say, Who is the man that is fearful and faint hearted? Let him go and return to his house, lest his brothers' heart faint as well as his heart. 9 When the officers have made an end of speaking to the people, they shall make captains of the armies to lead the people. 10 When you come near a city to fight against it, then shout peace to it. 11 If it makes the answer of peace and opens to you, then all the people found in it will be forced laborers for you to serve you. 12 But if it does not make peace with you, but will make war against you, then you shall besiege it. 13 When the Lord your God has delivered it to you, you shall strike every male of it with the edge of the sword. 14 But the women and the little children and the cattle and all that is in the city, all the spoil of it, you shall take for yourself. You shall eat the spoil of your enemies that the Lord your God has given you. 15 So you shall do likewise to all the cities that are far away from you that are not of the cities of these nations. 16 But of the cities of these people that the Lord your God gives you for an inheritance, you shall save alive nothing that breathes. 17 But you shall utterly destroy them: the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, and the Jebusites as the Lord your God has commanded you. 18 Do this so that they may not teach you to do according to all their abominations that they have done to their gods. Otherwise you would sin against the Lord your God. 19 When you besiege a city a long time in making war against it to take it, you shall not destroy its trees by forcing an axe against them, for you may eat of them. You shall not cut them down. For is the tree of the field a man that it could go before you to lay siege? 20 Only the trees that you know are not trees for food shall you destroy and cut down. You shall build bulwarks against the city that makes war with you until it is subdued.
|