16 Only of the cities of these peoples, which the Lord thy God gives thee for an inheritance, thou shalt save alive nothing that breathes;
17 but thou shalt utterly destroy them: the Hittite and the Amorite, the Canaanite and the Perizzite, the Hivite and the Jebusite, as the Lord thy God has commanded thee,
18 that they not teach you to do after all their abominations, which they do unto their gods, lest ye should sin against the Lord your God.
19 When thou shalt besiege a city a long time, in making war against it to take it, thou shalt not destroy the trees thereof by forcing an axe against them, for thou may eat of them; and thou shalt not cut them down (for the tree of the field is man’s life) to employ them in the siege.
20 Only the trees which thou knowest that they are not trees for food, thou shalt destroy and cut them down; and thou shalt build bulwarks against the city that makes war with thee, until it is subdued.