1When you go out to battle against your enemy and you see horse and chariot and a people more numerous than you, you shall not fear them, for the LORD your God is with you, the one who brought you up from the land of Egypt.2When you draw near to the battle, the priest shall approach and speak to the people.3He shall say to them, "Hear, O Israel, you are drawing near today to battle against your enemy. Do not let your heart grow faint; do not fear, do not be in haste, and do not tremble before them."4For the LORD your God goes with you to fight for you against your enemy, in order to save you.5The officials shall speak to the people, saying, "Is there any man who has built a new house and has not dedicated it? Let him go and return to his house, lest he die in the battle and another man dedicate it."6Is there any man who has planted a vineyard and has not begun to enjoy it? Let him go and return to his house, lest he die in the battle and another man begin to enjoy it.7Is there any man who has betrothed a woman and has not taken her? Let him go and return to his house, lest he die in the battle and another man take her.8The officials shall continue to speak to the people and say, "Is there any man who is afraid and fainthearted? Let him go and return to his house, so that he does not cause the heart of his brothers to melt like his own."9When the officials have finished speaking to the people, the commanders of the armies shall appoint leaders at the head of the people.10When you approach a city to fight against it, you shall offer it terms of peace.11If it answers peace and opens to you, then all the people found in it shall become subject to forced labor and shall serve you.12But if it does not make peace with you and makes war against you, then you shall besiege it.13And the LORD your God shall give it into your hand, and you shall strike all its males with the edge of the sword.14Only the women, the children, the livestock, and everything else in the city, all its spoil, you may plunder for yourselves, and you may eat the spoil of your enemies which the LORD your God has given you.15Thus you shall do to all the cities that are very far from you, which are not among the cities of these nations.16But in the cities of these peoples that the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance, you shall not let anything that breathes remain alive.17You shall devote them to destruction: the Hittite and the Amorite, the Canaanite and the Perizzite, the Hivite and the Jebusite, just as the LORD your God has commanded you.18So that they may not teach you to do according to all their abominable practices that they have done for their gods, and so that you do not sin against the LORD your God.19When you besiege a city for many days, waging war against it to capture it, you shall not destroy its trees by wielding an axe against them, for you may eat from them; you shall not cut them down. Are the trees of the field human, that they should come under siege from you?20Only the trees that you know are not trees for food you may destroy and cut down, and you may build siegeworks against the city that is making war against you until it falls.