◄ Deuteronomy 20:20 ►
Verse  (Click for Chapter)
Good News Translation
You may cut down the other trees and use them in the siege mounds until the city is captured.

New Revised Standard Version
You may destroy only the trees that you know do not produce food; you may cut them down for use in building siegeworks against the town that makes war with you, until it falls.

Contemporary English Version
You may need wood to make ladders and towers to help you get over the walls and capture the town. But use only trees that you know are not fruit trees.

New American Bible
However, those trees which you know are not fruit trees you may destroy. You may cut them down to build siegeworks against the city that is waging war with you, until it falls.

Douay-Rheims Bible
But if there be any trees that are not fruitful, but wild, and fit for other uses, cut them down, and make engines, until thou take the city, which fighteth against thee.

Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

But if there be any trees that are not fruitful, but wild, and fit for other uses, cut them down, and make engines, until thou take the city, which fighteth against thee.

thou shalt build

Deuteronomy 1:28 Whither shall we go up? the messengers have terrified our hearts, saying: The multitude is very great, and taller than we: the cities are great, and walled up to the sky, we have seen the sons of the Enacims there.

2 Chronicles 26:15 And he made in Jerusalem engines of diverse kinds, which he placed in the towers, and in the corners of the walls, to shoot arrows, and great stones: and his name went forth far abroad, for the Lord helped him, and had strengthened him.

Ecclesiastes 9:14 A little city, and few men in it: there came against it a great king, and invested it, and built bulwarks round about it, and the siege was perfect.

Isaiah 37:33 Wherefore thus saith the Lord concerning the king of the Assyrians: He shall not come into this city, nor shoot an arrow into it, nor come before it with shield, nor cast a trench about it.

Jeremiah 6:6 For thus saith the Lord of hosts: Hew down her trees, cast up a trench about Jerusalem: this is the city to be visited, all oppression is in the midst of her.

Jeremiah 33:4 For thus saith the Lord the God of Israel to the houses of this city, and to the houses of the king of Juda, which are destroyed, and to the bulwarks, and to the sword.

Ezekiel 17:17 And not with a great army, nor with much people shall Pharao fight against him: when he shall cast up mounts, and build forts, to cut off many souls.

be subdued [heb] come down

Context
Laws of Warfare
…19When thou hast besieged a city a long time, and hath compassed it with bulwarks, to take it, thou shalt not cut down the trees that may be eaten of, neither shalt thou spoil the country round about with axes: for it is a tree, and not a man, neither can it increase the number of them that fight against thee. 20But if there be any trees that are not fruitful, but wild, and fit for other uses, cut them down, and make engines, until thou take the city, which fighteth against thee.
Cross References
Deuteronomy 20:19
When thou hast besieged a city a long time, and hath compassed it with bulwarks, to take it, thou shalt not cut down the trees that may be eaten of, neither shalt thou spoil the country round about with axes: for it is a tree, and not a man, neither can it increase the number of them that fight against thee.

Deuteronomy 21:1
When there shall be found in the land, which the Lord thy God will give thee, the corpse of a man slain, and it is not known who is guilty of the murder,

Ecclesiastes 9:14
A little city, and few men in it: there came against it a great king, and invested it, and built bulwarks round about it, and the siege was perfect.

Jeremiah 6:6
For thus saith the Lord of hosts: Hew down her trees, cast up a trench about Jerusalem: this is the city to be visited, all oppression is in the midst of her.

Deuteronomy 20:19
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