¹⁰ When you march up to attack a city, make its people an offer of peace.^{(A) 11} If they accept and open their gates, all the people in it shall be subject^(B) to forced labor^(C) and shall work for you. ¹² If they refuse to make peace and they engage you in battle, lay siege to that city. ¹³ When the Lord your God delivers it into your hand, put to the sword all the men in it.^{(D) 14} As for the women, the children, the livestock^(E) and everything else in the city,^(F) you may take these as plunder^(G) for yourselves. And you may use the plunder the Lord your God gives you from your enemies. ¹⁵ This is how you are to treat all the cities that are at a distance^(H) from you and do not belong to the nations nearby.

¹⁶ However, in the cities of the nations the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance, do not leave alive anything that breathes.^{(I) 17} Completely destroy^[a] them—the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites—as the Lord your God has commanded you. ¹⁸ Otherwise, they will teach you to follow all the detestable things they do in worshiping their gods,^(J) and you will sin^(K) against the Lord your God.