² When the Lord your God hands these nations over to you and you conquer them, you must completely destroy^[a] them. Make no treaties with them and show them no mercy.

² For your part, you were not to make any covenants with the people living in this land; instead, you were to destroy their altars. But you disobeyed my command. Why did you do this?

³² “Make no treaties with them or their gods. ³³ They must not live in your land, or they will cause you to sin against me. If you serve their gods, you will be caught in the trap of idolatry.”

¹⁶ In those towns that the Lord your God is giving you as a special possession, destroy every living thing. ¹⁷ You must completely destroy^[a] the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites, just as the Lord your God has commanded you.

²⁴ They confronted a man coming out of the town and said to him, “Show us a way into the town, and we will have mercy on you.”

³⁰ There, too, the Lord gave them the town and its king. He killed everyone in it, leaving no survivors. Then Joshua killed the king of Libnah as he had killed the king of Jericho.

¹⁴ “We offer our own lives as a guarantee for your safety,” the men agreed. “If you don’t betray us, we will keep our promise and be kind to you when the Lord gives us the land.”

¹⁴ The camp must be holy, for the Lord your God moves around in your camp to protect you and to defeat your enemies. He must not see any shameful thing among you, or he will turn away from you.

²⁸ “However, anything specially set apart for the Lord—whether a person, an animal, or family property—must never be sold or bought back. Anything devoted in this way has been set apart as holy, and it belongs to the Lord. ²⁹ No person specially set apart for destruction may be bought back. Such a person must be put to death.

² So the king summoned the Gibeonites. They were not part of Israel but were all that was left of the nation of the Amorites. The people of Israel had sworn not to kill them, but Saul, in his zeal for Israel and Judah, had tried to wipe them out.