Statutes of Possessing the Land

⁵⁰ Then Yahweh spoke to Moses in the plains of Moab by the Jordan opposite Jericho, saying, ⁵¹ “Speak to the sons of Israel and say to them, ‘^(A)When you cross over the Jordan into the land of Canaan, ⁵² then you shall dispossess all the inhabitants of the land from before you and ^(B)destroy all their carved stones and destroy all their molten images and demolish all their high places;

² and when Yahweh your God gives them over before you and you strike them down, ^(A)then you shall devote them to destruction. ^(B)You shall cut no covenant with them ^(C)and show no favor to them.

^16 (A)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 ^(B)according to all their abominations which they have done for their gods, so that you would ^(C)sin against Yahweh your God.

¹⁹ “If you besiege a city for many days, to make war against it in order to capture it, you shall not destroy its trees by swinging an axe against them; for you may eat from them, and you shall not cut them down. ^[a]For is the tree of the field a man, that it should ^[b]be besieged by you? ²⁰ Only the trees which you know are not trees for food you shall destroy and cut down, that you may build siegeworks against the city that is making war with you until it falls.