1“When you’ll go out to war against your enemies, and you’ll see horses and chariots, a people more numerous than you, you shall not fear them, because YHWH, your God, is with you, who brought you up from the land of Egypt.
2And it will be, when you approach the war, that the priest shall go over and speak to the people.
3And he shall say to them, ‘Listen, Israel, you’re approaching war against your enemies today. Let your heart not be weak. Don’t be afraid and don’t panic and don’t be scared in front of them,
4because YHWH, your God, is the one going with you to fight for you with your enemies, to save you.’
5“And the officers shall speak to the people, saying, ‘Who is a man who has built a new house and has not dedicated it? Let him go, and let him go back to his house, in case he would die in the war and another man would dedicate it.
6And who is a man who has planted a vineyard and has not desanctified it? Let him go, and let him go back to his house, in case he would die in the war and another man would desanctify it.
20:6. desanctified. This may relate to a law such as that in Lev 19:23–25, whereby a newly planted tree goes through a period during which its fruit may not be eaten, followed by a period of being holy (“all of its fruit shall be holy”), and then a third period in which its period of sanctification ends and one may eat it. In the present context, then, it would refer to a man who has planted a vineyard but has not yet eaten any of its fruit.
7And who is a man who has betrothed a woman and has not taken her? Let him go, and let him go back to his house, in case he would die in the war and another man would take her.’
8And the officers shall continue to speak to the people and shall say, ‘Who is a man who is afraid and weakhearted? Let him go, and go back to his house, so he won’t melt his brothers’ heart like his heart.’
9And it will be, when the officers finish speaking to the people, that they shall appoint officers of the armies at the head of the people.
10“When you’ll approach a city to fight against it, then you shall call to it for peace.
11And it will be, if it will answer you with peace and open up to you, then it will be that all the people who are found in it shall become yours for a work-company and shall serve you.
12And if it will not make peace with you, but it will make war with you, then you shall besiege it.
13And YHWH, your God, will put it in your hand, and you shall strike all its males by the sword.
14Only, you shall take as spoil the women and the infants and the animals and everything that will be in the city, all its spoil, and you shall eat your enemies’ spoil that YHWH, your God, has given you.
15That is what you shall do to all the cities that are very distant from you, those that are not from these nations’ cities.
16Only from these peoples’ cities that YHWH, your God, is giving you as a legacy shall you not let any soul live.
17But you shall completely destroy them—the Hittite and the Amorite, the Canaanite and the Perizzite, the Hivite and the Jebusite—as YHWH, your God, has commanded you,
18so they won’t teach you to do things like all their offensive things that they did for their gods, and you’ll sin to YHWH, your God.
19“When you’ll besiege a city many days, fighting against it to capture it, you shall not destroy a tree of it, moving an axe at it, because you’ll eat from it, so you shall not cut it down; because is a tree of the field a human, to go from in front of you in a siege?!
20Only a tree that you’ll know that it isn’t a tree for eating: that one you may destroy and cut down so you may build a siege-work against the city that is making war with you until its fall.
