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16 However, in the cities of the nations that the LORD your God {YHWH Eloheka} is giving you as an inheritance, you must not leave alive anything that breathes. 17 For you must devote them to complete destruction {cherem}—the Hittites, Amorites (sayers), Canaanites (merchants), Perizzites (villagers), Hivites, and Jebusites (Jerusalemites)—as the LORD your God {YHWH Eloheka} has commanded you, 18 so that they cannot teach you⁺ to do all the detestable things they do for their gods, and so cause you⁺ to sin against the LORD your⁺ God {YHWH Eloheikem}. 19 When you lay siege to a city for an extended time while fighting against it to capture it, you must not destroy its trees by putting an axe to them, because you can eat their fruit. You must not cut them down. Are the trees of the field human, that you should besiege them? 20 But you may destroy the trees that you know do not produce fruit. Use them to build siege works against the city that is waging war against you, until it falls. Deuteronomy 20:16-20, Berean Annotated Bible. Public domain.
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