1When you go to war against your enemies and see chariotry and troops who outnumber you, do not be afraid of them, for the LORD your God, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt, is with you.
3"Listen, Israel! Today you are moving forward to do battle with your enemies. Do not be fainthearted. Do not fear and tremble or be terrified because of them,
5Moreover, the officers are to say to the troops, "Who among you has built a new house and not dedicated it? He may go home, lest he die in battle and someone else dedicate it.
8In addition, the officers are to say to the troops, "Who among you is afraid and fainthearted? He may go home so that he will not make his fellow soldier's heart as fearful as his own."
14However, the women, little children, cattle, and anything else in the city--all its plunder--you may take for yourselves as spoil. You may take from your enemies the plunder that the LORD your God has given you.
16As for the cities of these peoples that the LORD your God is going to give you as an inheritance, you must not allow a single living thing to survive.
17Instead you must utterly annihilate them--the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites--just as the LORD your God has commanded you,
19If you besiege a city for a long time while attempting to capture it, you must not chop down its trees, for you may eat fruit from them and should not cut them down. A tree in the field is not human that you should besiege it!
20However, you may chop down any tree you know is not suitable for food, and you may use it to build siege works against the city that is making war with you until that city falls.
