Preservation of Fruit Trees

¹⁹ “When you attack a city and have to fight against it for many days, don’t destroy its trees by cutting them down with an ax. You may eat from them, but you must not cut them down. Are the trees of the field human beings, that you would come and attack them? ²⁰ However, you may cut down the trees whose fruit^[a] you know isn’t edible, in order to build siege works against the city that waged war with you, until it falls.”