Rules of Peace

¹⁰ “When you approach a city to wage war against it, extend terms of peace. ¹¹ If it agrees to peace and welcomes you, then all the people found in it will serve you as forced laborers. ¹² But if they refuse to make peace with you and instead choose war, then attack it. ¹³ The Lord your God will deliver it into your control, and you must execute every male. ¹⁴ The women, children, all the livestock in the city, and all of the spoil and plunder will belong to you. Appropriate the spoil of your enemies, which the Lord your God will give you. ¹⁵ Do this to all the cities that are distant from you—that is, to those cities that are not in neighboring nations.”

Destruction of the Canaanites

¹⁶ “You are not to leave even one person alive in the cities of these nations that the Lord your God is about to give you as an inheritance. ¹⁷ You must completely destroy the Hittites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, just as the Lord your God commanded you, ¹⁸ so they won’t teach you to do all the detestable things that they do for their gods. If you do what they teach you, you will sin against the Lord your God.”