16. “Only, of the cities of these peoples which יהוה your Elohim gives you as an inheritance, you do not keep alive any that breathe,
17. but you shall certainly put them under the ban: the Ḥittite and the Amorite and the Kena‛anite and the Perizzite and the Ḥiwwite and the Yeḇusite, as יהוה your Elohim has commanded you,
18. lest they teach you to do according to all their abominations which they have done for their mighty ones, and you sin against יהוה your Elohim.
19. “When you besiege a city for a long time by fighting against it to take it, you do not destroy its trees by wielding an axe against them. If you do eat of them, do not cut them down. For is the tree of the field a man to be besieged by you?
20. “Only the trees which you know are not trees for food you do destroy and cut down, to build siege-works against the city that is fighting against you, until it falls.