When you approach a city to wage war against it, offer it terms of peace.

If it does not accept terms of peace but makes war with you, then you are to lay siege to it.

That is why the Lord’s anger erupted against this land, bringing on it all the curses ¹  written in this scroll.

I invoke heaven and earth as witnesses against you ¹  today that you will surely and swiftly be removed ²  from the very land you are about to cross the Jordan to possess. You will not last long there because you will surely be ³  annihilated.

If you besiege a city for a long time while attempting to capture it, ¹  you must not chop down its trees, ²  for you may eat fruit ³  from them and should not cut them down. A tree in the field is not human that you should besiege it! ⁴ 

accusing her of impropriety ¹  and defaming her reputation ²  by saying, “I married this woman but when I had sexual relations ³  with her I discovered she was not a virgin!”

If brothers live together and one of them dies without having a son, the dead man’s wife must not remarry someone outside the family. Instead, her late husband’s brother must go to her, marry her, ¹  and perform the duty of a brother-in-law. ²