| NET Bible | New Living Translation |
| 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. | 1“When you go out to fight your enemies and you face horses and chariots and an army greater than your own, do not be afraid. The LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, is with you! |
| 2As you move forward for battle, the priest will approach and say to the soldiers, | 2When you prepare for battle, the priest must come forward to speak to the troops. |
| 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, | 3He will say to them, ‘Listen to me, all you men of Israel! Do not be afraid as you go out to fight your enemies today! Do not lose heart or panic or tremble before them. |
| 4for the LORD your God goes with you to fight on your behalf against your enemies to give you victory." | 4For the LORD your God is going with you! He will fight for you against your enemies, and he will give you victory!’ |
| 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. | 5“Then the officers of the army must address the troops and say, ‘Has anyone here just built a new house but not yet dedicated it? If so, you may go home! You might be killed in the battle, and someone else would dedicate your house. |
| 6Or who among you has planted a vineyard and not benefited from it? He may go home, lest he die in battle and someone else benefit from it. | 6Has anyone here just planted a vineyard but not yet eaten any of its fruit? If so, you may go home! You might die in battle, and someone else would eat the first fruit. |
| 7Or who among you has become engaged to a woman but has not married her? He may go home, lest he die in battle and someone else marry her." | 7Has anyone here just become engaged to a woman but not yet married her? Well, you may go home and get married! You might die in the battle, and someone else would marry her.’ |
| 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." | 8“Then the officers will also say, ‘Is anyone here afraid or worried? If you are, you may go home before you frighten anyone else.’ |
| 9Then, when the officers have finished speaking, they must appoint unit commanders to lead the troops. | 9When the officers have finished speaking to their troops, they will appoint the unit commanders. |
| 10When you approach a city to wage war against it, offer it terms of peace. | 10“As you approach a town to attack it, you must first offer its people terms for peace. |
| 11If it accepts your terms and submits to you, all the people found in it will become your slaves. | 11If they accept your terms and open the gates to you, then all the people inside will serve you in forced labor. |
| 12If it does not accept terms of peace but makes war with you, then you are to lay siege to it. | 12But if they refuse to make peace and prepare to fight, you must attack the town. |
| 13The LORD your God will deliver it over to you and you must kill every single male by the sword. | 13When the LORD your God hands the town over to you, use your swords to kill every man in the town. |
| 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. | 14But you may keep for yourselves all the women, children, livestock, and other plunder. You may enjoy the plunder from your enemies that the LORD your God has given you. |
| 15This is how you are to deal with all those cities located far from you, those that do not belong to these nearby nations. | 15“But these instructions apply only to distant towns, not to the towns of the nations in the land you will enter. |
| 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. | 16In those towns that the LORD your God is giving you as a special possession, destroy every living thing. |
| 17Instead you must utterly annihilate them--the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites--just as the LORD your God has commanded you, | 17You must completely destroy the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites, just as the LORD your God has commanded you. |
| 18so that they cannot teach you all the abhorrent ways they worship their gods, causing you to sin against the LORD your God. | 18This will prevent the people of the land from teaching you to imitate their detestable customs in the worship of their gods, which would cause you to sin deeply against the LORD your God. |
| 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! | 19“When you are attacking a town and the war drags on, you must not cut down the trees with your axes. You may eat the fruit, but do not cut down the trees. Are the trees your enemies, that you should attack them? |
| 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. | 20You may only cut down trees that you know are not valuable for food. Use them to make the equipment you need to attack the enemy town until it falls. |
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