Deuteronomy 20:17-19

Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition

¹⁷ but you shall utterly destroy them, the Hittites and the Amorites, the Canaanites and the Per′izzites, the Hivites and the Jeb′usites, as the Lord your God has commanded; ¹⁸ that they may not teach you to do according to all their abominable practices which they have done in the service of their gods, and so to sin against the Lord your God.

¹⁹ “When you besiege a city for a long time, making war against it in order to take it, you shall not destroy its trees by wielding an axe against them; for you may eat of them, but you shall not cut them down. Are the trees in the field men that they should be besieged by you?