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10 “If you come near a city to fight against it, you shall call for terms of peace. 11 Now it will be that if it [a]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 And Yahweh your God shall give it into your hand, (B)and you shall strike all the males in it with the edge of the sword. 14 Only the women and the little ones and (C)the animals and all that is in the city, all its spoil, you shall plunder for yourself; and you shall consume the spoil of your enemies which Yahweh 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 [b]nearby. 16 (D)Only in the cities of these peoples that Yahweh your God is giving you as an inheritance, you shall not leave alive anything that breathes. 17 But you shall devote them to destruction, the Hittite and the Amorite, the Canaanite and the Perizzite, the Hivite and the Jebusite, as Yahweh your God has commanded you, 18 so that they may not teach you to do (E)according to all their abominations which they have done for their gods, so that you would (F)sin against Yahweh your God.

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Footnotes

  1. Deuteronomy 20:11 Lit answers peace
  2. Deuteronomy 20:15 Lit here

10 When you approach a city to fight against it, call out to it, asking for a peaceful surrender. 11 If the city answers you, “Peace,” and it opens up its gates for you, then all the people found in it will become forced labor for you and they will serve you.

12 But if it does not make peace with you, and it makes war against you, then lay siege against it. 13 The Lord your God will deliver it into your hands, and you will strike down all the males with the edge of the sword.

14 But the women and the children, and the cattle and everything that is in the city—all its plunder—take as spoils of war for yourself. You may make use of the plunder of your enemies that the Lord your God gives you.

15 Do this to all the cities that are very far away from you, which are not cities of the nations around here.

16 However, from the cities of these people that the Lord your God is giving to you as your inheritance, do not keep alive anything that breathes. 17 Devote them completely to destruction—the Hittites and the Amorites, the Canaanites and the Perizzites, the Hivites and the Jebusites—just as the Lord your God has commanded you, 18 so that they do not teach you to commit all of the abominations that they commit for their gods, with the result that you sin against the Lord your God.

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