¹⁰When you march up to attack a city, make its people an offer of peace.^w ¹¹If they accept and open their gates, all the people in it shall be subject^x to forced labor^y and shall work for you. ¹²If they refuse to make peace and they engage you in battle, lay siege to that city. ¹³When the Lord your God delivers it into your hand, put to the sword all the men in it.^z ¹⁴As for the women, the children, the livestock^a and everything else in the city,^b you may take these as plunder^c for yourselves. And you may use the plunder the Lord your God gives you from your enemies. ¹⁵This is how you are to treat all the cities that are at a distance^d from you and do not belong to the nations nearby.

¹⁶However, in the cities of the nations the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance, do not leave alive anything that breathes.^e ¹⁷Completely destroy^a them—the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites—as the Lord your God has commanded you. ¹⁸Otherwise, they will teach you to follow all the detestable things they do in worshiping their gods,^f and you will sin^g against the Lord your God.

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Footnotes

aThe Hebrew term refers to the irrevocable giving over of things or persons to the Lord, often by totally destroying them.

Cross references

wSee Dt 2:26; Lk 14:31–32
xver 15; 2 Ki 6:22
y 1 Ki 9:21; 1 Ch 22:2; Isa 31:8
z Nu 31:7
a Jos 8:2; 22:8
bSee Nu 31:11
cSee Nu 31:53
dSee ver 11; Jos 9:9
e Ex 23:31–33; Nu 21:2–3; See Dt 7:2; Jos 6:21; 10:1; 11:14
fSee Ex 34:16
gSee Ex 10:7