Law of Possessing the Land

⁵⁰ Then the Lord spoke to Moses in the plains of Moab by the Jordan opposite Jericho, saying, ⁵¹ “Speak to the sons of Israel and say to them, ‘^(A)When you cross over the Jordan into the land of Canaan, ⁵² then you shall drive out all the inhabitants of the land from before you, and ^(B)destroy all their figured stones, and destroy all their molten images and demolish all their high places;

² and when the Lord your God delivers them before you and you ^[a]defeat them, ^(A)then you shall ^[b]utterly destroy them. ^(B)You shall make no covenant with them ^(C)and show no favor to them.

^16 (A)Only in the cities of these peoples that the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance, you shall not leave alive anything that breathes. ¹⁷ But you shall ^[a]utterly destroy them, the Hittite and the Amorite, the Canaanite and the Perizzite, the Hivite and the Jebusite, as the Lord your God has commanded you, ¹⁸ so that they may not teach you to do ^(B)according to all their detestable things which they have done for their gods, so that you would ^(C)sin against the Lord your God.

¹⁹ “When you besiege a city a long time, to make war against it in order to capture it, you shall not destroy its trees by swinging an axe against them; for you may eat from them, and you shall not cut them down. ^[b]For is the tree of the field a man, that it should ^[c]be besieged by you? ²⁰ Only the trees which you know ^[d]are not fruit trees you shall destroy and cut down, that you may construct siegeworks against the city that is making war with you until it falls.