10 “When you approach a city to fight against it, you shall [a]offer it terms of peace. 11 And if it [b]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 serve you. 12 However, if it does not make peace with you, but makes war against you, then you shall besiege it. 13 When the Lord your God gives it into your hand, (B)you shall strike all the [c]men in it with the edge of the sword. 14 However, the women, the children, (C)the animals, and everything that is in the city, all of its spoils, you shall take as plunder for yourself; and you shall [d]use the spoils of your enemies which the Lord your God has given you. 15 This is what you shall do to all the cities that are very far from you, which are not of the cities of these nations [e]nearby. 16 (D)Only in the cities of these peoples that the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance, you shall not leave anything that breathes alive. 17 Instead, you shall [f]utterly destroy them, the Hittite and the Amorite, the Canaanite and the Perizzite, the Hivite and the Jebusite, just as the Lord your God has commanded you, 18 so that they will not teach you to do [g](E)all the same detestable practices of theirs which they have done for their gods, [h]by which you would (F)sin against the Lord your God.

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Footnotes

  1. Deuteronomy 20:10 Lit call to it for peace
  2. Deuteronomy 20:11 Lit answers peace to you
  3. Deuteronomy 20:13 Lit males
  4. Deuteronomy 20:14 Lit eat
  5. Deuteronomy 20:15 Lit here
  6. Deuteronomy 20:17 Or put them under the ban
  7. Deuteronomy 20:18 Lit according to all the detestable
  8. Deuteronomy 20:18 Lit and you would

10 “When you draw near to a city to fight against it, (A)offer terms of peace to it. 11 And if it responds to you peaceably and it opens to you, then all the people who are found in it shall do forced labor for you and shall serve you. 12 But if it makes no peace with you, but makes war against you, then you shall besiege it. 13 And when the Lord your God gives it into your hand, (B)you shall put all its males to the sword, 14 (C)but the women and the little ones, the livestock, and everything else in the city, all its spoil, you (D)shall take as plunder for yourselves. And (E)you shall enjoy the spoil of your enemies, which the Lord your God has given you. 15 Thus you shall do to all the cities that are very far from you, which are not cities of the nations here. 16 But (F)in the cities of these peoples that the Lord your God is giving you for an inheritance, you shall save alive nothing that breathes, 17 but (G)you shall devote them to complete destruction,[a] the Hittites and the Amorites, the Canaanites and the Perizzites, the Hivites and the Jebusites, as the Lord your God has commanded, 18 that (H)they may not teach you to do according to all their abominable practices that they have done for their gods, and so you (I)sin against the Lord your God.

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Footnotes

  1. Deuteronomy 20:17 That is, set apart (devote) as an offering to the Lord (for destruction)