Bible in Basic English
So that you may not take them as your example and do all the disgusting things which they do in the worship of their gods, so sinning against the Lord your God.
If in war a town is shut in by your armies for a long time, do not let its trees be cut down and made waste; for their fruit will be your food; are the trees of the countryside men for you to take up arms against them?
Only those trees which you are certain are not used for food may be cut down and put to destruction: and you are to make walls of attack against the town till it is taken.
— Deuteronomy 20:18-1964, Bible in Basic English
“That they teach you not to do after all their abominations, which they have done unto their gods; so should ye sin against the Lord your God. When thou shalt besiege a city a long time, in making war against it to take it, thou shalt not destroy the trees thereof by forcing an axe against them: for thou mayest eat of them, and thou shalt not cut them down (for the tree of the field is man’s life) to employ them in the siege: Only the trees which thou knowest that they be not trees for meat, thou shalt destroy and cut them down; and thou shalt build bulwarks against the city that maketh war with thee, until it be subdued. ”
So you are to do to all the towns far away, which are not the towns of these nations.
But in the towns of these peoples whose land the Lord your God is giving you for your heritage, let no living thing be kept from death:
Give them up to the curse; the Hittite, the Amorite, the Canaanite, the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite, as the Lord your God has given you orders:
So that you may not take them as your example and do all the disgusting things which they do in the worship of their gods, so sinning against the Lord your God.
If in war a town is shut in by your armies for a long time, do not let its trees be cut down and made waste; for their fruit will be your food; are the trees of the countryside men for you to take up arms against them?
Only those trees which you are certain are not used for food may be cut down and put to destruction: and you are to make walls of attack against the town till it is taken.