Chapter Twenty

The order of preparation for war. — Exemptions from military service. — Conducting offensive warfare.

Deuteronomy 20:16. But in the cities of these peoples that the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance, you shall not leave alive a single soul, Deuteronomy 20:17. but you shall devote them to complete destruction: the Hittites and the Amorites, and the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites, [and the Girgashites,] as the Lord your God has commanded you, Deuteronomy 20:18. so that they may not teach you to do all the abominable things that they have done for their gods, and so that you would not sin against the Lord your God. “Do not leave alive a single soul” — to avoid the temptation of idolatry (v. 18). Cf. Exod 23:32-33; Deut 7:2.