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Deuteronomy 20:1-20 — Going to War

Deut.20.1-20

¹When you go out to battle against your enemies and see horses and chariots , an army larger than yours, you shall not be afraid of them, for the LORD your God, who brought you up from the land of Egypt, is with you. ²And it shall be, when you draw near to the battle, the priest shall approach and speak to the people, ³and he shall say to them, 'Hear, O Israel, today you are drawing near to battle against your enemies. Do not let your heart be faint. Do not be afraid, do not panic, and do not be terrified because of them. ⁴For the LORD your God is the one going with you to fight for you against your enemies, to save you.' ⁵Then the officers shall speak to the people, saying, 'Who is the man that 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. ⁶And who is the man that has planted a vineyard and has not begun to enjoy its fruit? Let him go and return to his house, lest he die in the battle and another man begin to enjoy its fruit. ⁷And who is the man that has pledged to marry a woman and has not married her? Let him go and return to his house, lest he die in the battle and another man marry her.' ⁸The officers shall speak further to the people and say, 'Who is the man that is afraid and fainthearted? Let him go and return to his house, so that the heart of his brothers will not melt like his heart.' ⁹And it shall be, when the officers have finished speaking to the people, they shall appoint commanders of the armies at the head of the people. ¹⁰When you approach a city to fight against it, you shall offer it terms of peace. ¹¹And it shall be, if it answers you with peace and opens its gates to you, then all the people found in it shall become forced laborers for you and shall serve you. ¹²But if it does not make peace with you, but wages war against you, then you shall lay siege to it. ¹³When the LORD your God delivers it into your hand, you shall strike every male in it with the edge of the sword. ¹⁴But the women, the little children, the livestock, and everything that is in the city—all its spoil—you shall take as plunder for yourself, and you shall consume the spoil of your enemies that 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 here. ¹⁶However, from the cities of these peoples that the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance, you shall not leave alive anything that breathes. ¹⁷Instead, you shall devote them to complete destruction—the Hittites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites—just as the LORD your God has commanded you, ¹⁸so that they may not teach you to do according to all their abominations that they have done for their gods, and so you would sin against the LORD your God. ¹⁹When you lay siege to a city for many days, fighting against it to capture it, you shall not destroy its trees by wielding an axe against them. For you may eat from them, and you shall not cut them down. For is the tree of the field a human being, that it should be besieged by you? ²⁰Only the trees that you know are not trees for food, you may destroy and cut down, and you shall build siege works against the city that is waging war against you, until it falls.

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4/11/2026

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