10 “When you approach a city to fight against it, you shall [a]offer it terms of peace. 11 If it [b]agrees to make peace with you and opens to you, then all the people who are found in it shall become your (A)forced labor and shall serve you. 12 However, if it does not make peace with you, but makes war against you, then you shall besiege it. 13 When the Lord your God gives it into your hand, (B)you shall strike all the [c]men in it with the edge of the sword. 14 Only the women and the children and (C)the animals and all that is in the city, all its spoil, you shall take as booty for yourself; and you shall [d]use the spoil of your enemies which the Lord your God has given you. 15 Thus you shall do to all the cities that are very far from you, which are not of the cities of these nations [e]nearby. 16 (D)Only in the cities of these peoples that the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance, you shall not leave alive anything that breathes. 17 But you shall [f]utterly destroy them, the Hittite and the Amorite, the Canaanite and the Perizzite, the Hivite and the Jebusite, as the Lord your God has commanded you, 18 so that they may not teach you to do (E)according to all their detestable things which they have done for their gods, so that you would (F)sin against the Lord your God.

Read full chapter

Footnotes

  1. Deuteronomy 20:10 Lit call to it for peace
  2. Deuteronomy 20:11 Lit answers peace
  3. Deuteronomy 20:13 Lit males
  4. Deuteronomy 20:14 Lit eat
  5. Deuteronomy 20:15 Lit here
  6. Deuteronomy 20:17 Or put them under the ban

10 `When thou drawest near unto a city to fight against it, then thou hast called unto it for Peace,

11 and it hath been, if Peace it answer thee, and hath opened to thee, then it hath come to pass -- all the people who are found in it are to thee for tributaries, and have served thee.

12 `And if it doth not make peace with thee, and hath made with thee war, then thou hast laid siege against it,

13 and Jehovah thy God hath given it into thy hand, and thou hast smitten every male of it by the mouth of the sword.

14 Only, the women, and the infants, and the cattle, and all that is in the city, all its spoil, thou dost seize for thyself, and thou hast eaten the spoil of thine enemies which Jehovah thy God hath given to thee.

15 So thou dost do to all the cities which are very far off from thee, which are not of the cities of these nations.

16 `Only, of the cities of these peoples which Jehovah thy God is giving to thee [for] an inheritance, thou dost not keep alive any breathing;

17 for thou dost certainly devote the Hittite, and the Amorite, the Canaanite, and the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite, as Jehovah thy God hath commanded thee,

18 so that they teach you not to do according to all their abominations which they have done to their gods, and ye have sinned against Jehovah your God.

Read full chapter