Dual Panel1WHEN you take the field against your enemies and are faced by horses and chariots, a force greater than yours, you need have no fear of them, for the LORD your God, who brought you up from Egypt, will be with you.
2Then when fighting impends, the priest must come forward and address the army in these words:
3“Hear, Israel! Now that you are about to join battle with your enemy, do not lose heart or be afraid; do not let alarm affect you, and do not give way to panic in face of them.
4The LORD your God accompanies you to fight for you against your enemy and give you the victory.”
5The officers are to say to the army: “Any man who has built a new house and has not dedicated it should go back to his house; otherwise he may die in battle and another man dedicate it.
6Any man who has planted a vineyard and has not begun to use it should go back home; otherwise he may die in battle and another man get the use of it.
7Any man who has pledged himself to take a woman in marriage and has not taken her should go back home; otherwise he may die in battle and another man take her.”
8The officers must also say to the army: “Let anyone who is afraid and has lost heart go back home; or his faint-heartedness may affect his comrades.”
9When the officers have finished addressing the army, commanders will assume command.
10When you advance on a town to attack it, make an offer of peace.
11If the offer is accepted and the town opens its gates to you, then all the people who live there are to be put to forced labour and work for you.
12If the town does not make peace with you but gives battle, you are to lay siege to it
13and, when the LORD your God delivers it into your hands, put every male in it to the sword;
14but you may take the women, the dependants, and the livestock for yourselves, and plunder everything else in the town. You may enjoy the use of the spoil from your enemies which the LORD your God gives you.
15That is how you are to deal with towns at a great distance, as opposed to those which belong to nations near at hand.
16In the towns of these nations whose land the LORD your God is giving you as your holding, you must not leave a soul alive.
17As the LORD your God commanded you, you must destroy them under solemn ban -- Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, Jebusites --
18so that they may not teach you to imitate the abominable practices they have carried on for their gods, and so cause you to sin against the LORD your God.
19When in the course of war you lay siege to a town for a long time in order to take it, do not destroy its trees by taking an axe to them, for they provide you with food; you must not cut them down. The trees of the field are not people, that you should besiege them.
20But you may destroy or cut down any trees that you know do not yield food, and use them in siege-works against the town that is at war with you, until it falls.