Deuteronomy 20:16
However, in the cities of the nations that the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance, you must not leave alive anything that breathes.
Majority Standard Bible
In The King James Version
In Context
Cross References
Numbers 21:2So Israel made a vow to the LORD: “If You will deliver this people into our hands, we will devote their cities to destruction.”
Numbers 33:52you must drive out before you all the inhabitants of the land, destroy all their carved images and cast idols, and demolish all their high places.
Deuteronomy 7:1When the LORD your God brings you into the land that you are entering to possess, and He drives out before you many nations—the Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites, seven nations larger and stronger than you—
Deuteronomy 7:16You must destroy all the peoples the LORD your God will deliver to you. Do not look on them with pity. Do not worship their gods, for that will be a snare to you.
Deuteronomy 31:5The LORD will deliver them over to you, and you must do to them exactly as I have commanded you.
Joshua 9:7But the men of Israel said to the Hivites, “Perhaps you dwell near us. How can we make a treaty with you?”
Matthew Henry on Deuteronomy 20:11-20
Proclamations of War; Directions Concerning War. ( b. c. 1451.) 10 When thou comest nigh unto a city to fight against it, then proclaim peace unto it. 11 And it shall be, if it make thee answer of peace, and open unto thee, then it shall be, that all the people that is found therein shall be tributaries unto thee, and they shall serve thee. 12 And if it will make no peace with thee, but will make war against thee, then thou shalt besiege it: 13 And when the Lord thy God hath delivered it into thine hands, thou… Read the whole commentary →