Deuteronomy 20:16-20 ▼

16 Only, of the cities of these peoples which your God YHWH is giving to you [for] an inheritance, you do not keep alive any [that are] breathing;

17 for you certainly devote the Hittite, and the Amorite, the Canaanite, and the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite, as your God YHWH has commanded you,

18 so that they do not teach you to do according to all their abominations which they have done for their gods, and you have sinned against your God YHWH.

19 When you lay siege to a city [for] many days to fight against it, to capture it, you do not destroy its trees to force an axe against them, for you eat of them, and you do not cut them down—for the tree of the field [is] man’s—to go in at your presence in the siege.

20 Only, the tree of which you know that it [is] not a fruit-tree, you destroy it, and have cut [it] down, and have built a bulwark against the city which is making war with you until you have subdued it.”