Deuteronomy:20:1-20
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When you go out to battle against your enemies and see horses and chariots ,
a people more than you ,
do not be afraid of them .
For the LORD your God [
is ]
with you ,
who brought you up out of the land of Egypt .
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And it shall be ,
when you come near to the battle ,
the priest shall go up and speak to the people ,
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and shall say to them ,
Hear ,
O ,
Israel ,
today you go up to battle against your enemies .
Do not let your hearts faint ,
do not fear ,
and do not tremble ,
neither be terrified before their faces .
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For the LORD your God [
is ]
He who goes with you to fight for you against your enemies ,
to save you .
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And 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 .
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And who [
is ]
the man that has planted a vineyard and has not used its fruits ?
Let him go and return to his house ,
lest he die in the battle and another man use its fruits .
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And who [
is ]
the man that has become engaged to a wife and has not taken her ?
Let him go and return to his house ,
lest he die in the battle and another man take her .
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And the officers shall speak further to the people ,
and they shall say ,
Who [
is ]
the man that is fearful and faint-hearted ?
Let him go and return to his house ,
lest his brothers '
heart faint as well as his heart .
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And it shall be ,
when the officers have made an end of speaking to the people ,
they shall make captains of the armies to lead the people .
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When you come near a city to fight against it ,
then shout peace to it .
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And it shall be ,
if it makes the answer of peace and opens to you ,
then all the people found in it shall be forced laborers to you ,
and they shall serve you .
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But if it will make no peace with you ,
but will make war against you ,
then you shall besiege it .
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And when the LORD your God has delivered it into your hands ,
you shall strike every male of it with the edge of the sword .
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But the women ,
and the little ones ,
and the cattle ,
and all that is in the city ,
all the spoil of it ,
you shall take to yourself .
And you shall eat the spoil of your enemies ,
which the LORD your God has given you .
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So you shall do to all the cities [
which are ]
very far off from you ,
which are not of the cities of these nations .
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But of the cities of these people ,
which the LORD your God gives you [
for ]
an inheritance ,
you shall save alive nothing that breathes .
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But you shall utterly destroy them :
the Hittites ,
and the Amorites ,
the Canaanites ,
and the Perizzites ,
the Hivites and the Jebusites ;
as the LORD your God has commanded you ,
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so that they may not teach you to do according to all their abominations which they have done to their gods .
So you would sin against the LORD your God .
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When you shall besiege a city a long time in making war against it to take it ,
you shall not destroy its trees by forcing an axe against them .
For you may eat of them ,
and you shall not cut them down .
For [
is ]
the tree of the field a man that it should go before you to lay siege ?
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Only the trees which you know that they [
are ]
not trees for food ,
you shall destroy and cut them down .
And you shall build bulwarks against the city that makes war with you ,
until it is subdued .