¹⁹ Also you shall attack every fortified city and every choice city, and shall cut down every good tree, and stop up every spring of water, and ruin every good piece of land with stones.”

¹⁷ And he said, “Open the east window”; and he opened it. Then Elisha said, “Shoot”; and he shot. And he said, “The arrow of the Lord’s deliverance and the arrow of deliverance from Syria; for you must strike the Syrians at ^(A)Aphek till you have destroyed them.”

²⁵ Then they destroyed the cities, and each man threw a stone on every good piece of land and filled it; and they stopped up all the springs of water and cut down all the good trees. But they left the stones of ^(A)Kir Haraseth intact. However the slingers surrounded and attacked it.

² Therefore David ^(A)inquired of the Lord, saying, “Shall I go and ^[a]attack these Philistines?”

And the Lord said to David, “Go and attack the Philistines, and save Keilah.”

³ Now go and ^(A)attack^[a] Amalek, and ^(B)utterly destroy all that they have, and do not spare them. But kill both man and woman, infant and nursing child, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.’ ”

¹⁶ And the Lord said to him, ^(A)“Surely I will be with you, and you shall ^[a]defeat the Midianites as one man.”

¹⁹ “When you besiege a city for a long time, while making war against it to take it, you shall not destroy its trees by wielding an ax against them; if you can eat of them, do not cut them down to use in the siege, for the tree of the field is man’s food. ²⁰ Only the trees which you know are not trees for food you may destroy and cut down, to build siegeworks against the city that makes war with you, until it is subdued.