Deuteronomy 20:18

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Deuteronomy 20:16–20 · Berean Standard Bible

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.

17 For you must devote them to complete destruction —the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites—as the LORD your God has commanded you,

18 so that they cannot teach you to do all the detestable things they do for their gods, and so cause you to sin against the LORD your God.

19 When you lay siege to a city for an extended time while fighting against it to capture it, you must not destroy its trees by putting an axe to them, because you can eat their fruit. You must not cut them down. Are the trees of the field human, that you should besiege them?

20 But you may destroy the trees that you know do not produce fruit. Use them to build siege works against the city that is waging war against you, until it falls.

Hebrew words

Data created by STEPBible.org based on work at Tyndale House Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).

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Cross-references

The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge lists these related verses. Scripture text comes from the Berean Standard Bible.

Deuteronomy 7:4

because they will turn your sons away from following Me to serve other gods. Then the anger of the LORD will burn against you, and He will swiftly destroy you.

Deuteronomy 7:5

Instead, this is what you are to do to them: tear down their altars, smash their sacred pillars, cut down their Asherah poles, and burn their idols in the fire.

Deuteronomy 12:30

be careful not to be ensnared by their ways after they have been destroyed before you. Do not inquire about their gods, asking, “How do these nations serve their gods? I will do likewise.”

Deuteronomy 12:31

You must not worship the LORD your God in this way, because they practice for their gods every abomination which the LORD hates. They even burn their sons and daughters in the fire as sacrifices to their gods.

Deuteronomy 18:19

And I will hold accountable anyone who does not listen to My words that the prophet speaks in My name.

Exodus 23:33

They must not remain in your land, lest they cause you to sin against Me. For if you serve their gods, it will surely be a snare to you.”

Joshua 23:13

know for sure that the LORD your God will no longer drive out these nations before you. Instead, they will become for you a snare and a trap, a scourge in your sides and thorns in your eyes, until you perish from this good land that the LORD your God has given you.

Judges 2:3

So now I tell you that I will not drive out these people before you; they will be thorns in your sides, and their gods will be a snare to you.”

Psalms 106:34

They did not destroy the peoples as the LORD had commanded them,

Psalms 106:35

but they mingled with the nations and adopted their customs.

Psalms 106:36

They worshiped their idols, which became a snare to them.

Psalms 106:37

They sacrificed their sons and their daughters to demons.

Psalms 106:38

They shed innocent blood— the blood of their sons and daughters, whom they sacrificed to the idols of Canaan, and the land was polluted with blood.

Psalms 106:39

They defiled themselves by their actions and prostituted themselves by their deeds.

Psalms 106:40

So the anger of the LORD burned against His people, and He abhorred His own inheritance.

1 Corinthians 15:33

Do not be deceived: “Bad company corrupts good character.”

2 Corinthians 6:17

“Therefore come out from among them and be separate, says the Lord. Touch no unclean thing, and I will receive you.”

Ephesians 5:11

Have no fellowship with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them.

2 Thessalonians 3:14

Take note of anyone who does not obey the instructions we have given in this letter. Do not associate with him, so that he may be ashamed.

1 Timothy 6:5

and constant friction between men of depraved mind who are devoid of the truth. These men regard godliness as a means of gain.

2 Timothy 2:17

and the talk of such men will spread like gangrene. Among them are Hymenaeus and Philetus,

2 Timothy 2:18

who have deviated from the truth. They say that the resurrection has already occurred, and they undermine the faith of some.

Revelation 18:3

All the nations have drunk the wine of the passion of her immorality. The kings of the earth were immoral with her, and the merchants of the earth have grown wealthy from the extravagance of her luxury.”

Revelation 18:4

Then I heard another voice from heaven say: “Come out of her, My people, so that you will not share in her sins or contract any of her plagues.

Revelation 18:5

For her sins are piled up to heaven, and God has remembered her iniquities.