13:16 You must gather all of its plunder into the middle of the plaza 1 and burn the city and all its plunder as a whole burnt offering to the Lord your God. It will be an abandoned ruin 2 forever – it must never be rebuilt again.
1 tnHeb “street.”
2 tnHeb “mound”; NAB “a heap of ruins.” The Hebrew word תֵּל (tel) refers to this day to a ruin represented especially by a built-up mound of dirt or debris (cf. Tel Aviv, “mound of grain”).