Laws Concerning Warfare

¹“When you go out to war against your enemies, and see ihorses and chariots and an army larger than your own, you shall not be afraid of them, for the Lord your God is jwith you, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt. ²And when you draw near to the battle, kthe priest shall come forward and speak to the people ³and shall say to them, ‘Hear, O Israel, today you are drawing near for battle against your enemies: let not your heart faint. Do not fear or panic or be in dread of them, ⁴for the Lord your God is he who goes with you lto fight for you against your enemies, to give you the victory.’ ⁵Then the officers shall speak to the people, saying, ‘Is there any man who has built a new house and has not dedicated it? Let him go back to his house, lest he die in the battle and another man dedicate it. ⁶And is there any man who has planted a vineyard and has not menjoyed its fruit? Let him go back to his house, lest he die in the battle and another man enjoy its fruit. ⁷nAnd is there any man who has betrothed a wife and has not taken her? Let him go back to his house, lest he die in the battle and another man take her.’ ⁸And the officers shall speak further to the people, and say, o‘Is there any man who is fearful and fainthearted? Let him go back to his house, lest he make the heart of his fellows melt like his own.’ ⁹And when the officers have finished speaking to the people, then commanders shall be appointed at the head of the people.

¹⁰“When you draw near to a city to fight against it, poffer terms of peace to it. ¹¹And if it responds to you peaceably and it opens to you, then all the people who are found in it shall do forced labor for you and shall serve you. ¹²But if it makes no peace with you, but makes war against you, then you shall besiege it. ¹³And when the Lord your God gives it into your hand, qyou shall put all its males to the sword, ¹⁴rbut the women and the little ones, the livestock, and everything else in the city, all its spoil, you sshall take as plunder for yourselves. And tyou shall enjoy the spoil of your enemies, which the Lord your God has given you. ¹⁵Thus you shall do to all the cities that are very far from you, which are not cities of the nations here. ¹⁶But uin the cities of these peoples that the Lord your God is giving you for an inheritance, you shall save alive nothing that breathes, ¹⁷but vyou shall devote them to complete destruction,1 the Hittites and the Amorites, the Canaanites and the Perizzites, the Hivites and the Jebusites, as the Lord your God has commanded, ¹⁸that wthey may not teach you to do according to all their abominable practices that they have done for their gods, and so you xsin against the Lord your God.

¹⁹“When you besiege a city for a long time, making war against it in order to take it, yyou shall not destroy its trees by wielding an axe against them. You may eat from them, but you shall not cut them down. Are the trees in the field human, that they should be besieged by you? ²⁰Only the trees that you know are not trees for food you may destroy and cut down, that you may build siegeworks against the city that makes war with you, until it falls.

Book Five

Let the Redeemed of the Lord Say So

¹gOh give thanks to the Lord, hfor he is good,

for his steadfast love endures forever!

²Let ithe redeemed of the Lord say so,

whom he has jredeemed from trouble1

³and kgathered in from the lands,

from the east and from the west,

from the north and from the south.

⁴Some lwandered in desert wastes,

finding no way mto a city to dwell in;

⁵hungry and thirsty,

their soul nfainted within them.

⁶Then they ocried to the Lord in their trouble,

and he delivered them from their distress.

⁷He led them by pa straight way

till they reached ma city to dwell in.

⁸qLet them thank the Lord for his steadfast love,

for his wondrous works to the children of man!

⁹For he rsatisfies the longing soul,

sand the hungry soul he fills with good things.

¹⁰tSome sat in darkness and in uthe shadow of death,

prisoners in vaffliction and in irons,

¹¹for they whad rebelled against the words of God,

and xspurned the counsel of the Most High.

¹²So he bowed their hearts down with hard labor;

they fell down, ywith none to help.

¹³zThen they cried to the Lord in their trouble,

and he delivered them from their distress.

¹⁴He brought them out of adarkness and the shadow of death,

and bburst their bonds apart.

¹⁵cLet them thank the Lord for his steadfast love,

for his wondrous works to the children of man!

¹⁶For he dshatters the doors of bronze

and cuts in two the bars of iron.

¹⁷Some were efools through their sinful ways,

and because of their iniquities suffered affliction;

¹⁸fthey loathed any kind of food,

and they gdrew near to hthe gates of death.

¹⁹iThen they cried to the Lord in their trouble,

and he delivered them from their distress.

²⁰He jsent out his word and khealed them,

and ldelivered them from their destruction.

²¹mLet them thank the Lord for his steadfast love,

for his wondrous works to the children of man!

²²And let them noffer sacrifices of thanksgiving,

and otell of his deeds in psongs of joy!

²³Some qwent down to the sea in ships,

doing business on the great waters;

²⁴they saw the deeds of the Lord,

his wondrous works in the deep.

²⁵For he rcommanded and sraised the stormy wind,

which lifted up the waves of the sea.

²⁶They mounted up to heaven; they went down to the depths;

their courage tmelted away in their evil plight;

²⁷they reeled and ustaggered like drunken men

and vwere at their wits' end.2

²⁸wThen they cried to the Lord in their trouble,

and he delivered them from their distress.

²⁹He xmade the storm be still,

and the waves of the sea were hushed.

³⁰Then they were glad that the waters3 were quiet,

and he brought them to their desired haven.

³¹yLet them thank the Lord for his steadfast love,

for his wondrous works to the children of man!

³²Let them zextol him in athe congregation of the people,

and praise him in the assembly of the elders.

³³He bturns rivers into a desert,

springs of water into thirsty ground,

³⁴ca fruitful land into a salty waste,

because of the evil of its inhabitants.

³⁵He dturns a desert into pools of water,

ea parched land into springs of water.

³⁶And there he lets the hungry dwell,

and they establish fa city to live in;

³⁷they sow fields and plant vineyards

and get a fruitful yield.

³⁸gBy his blessing they multiply greatly,

and he does not let their livestock diminish.

³⁹When they are diminished and brought low

through oppression, evil, and sorrow,

⁴⁰hhe pours contempt on princes

and imakes them wander jin trackless wastes;

⁴¹but khe raises up the needy out of affliction

and lmakes their families like flocks.

⁴²mThe upright see it and are glad,

and nall wickedness shuts its mouth.

⁴³oWhoever is wise, let him attend to these things;

let them consider the steadfast love of the Lord.

The Humiliation of Babylon

¹eCome down and sit in the dust,

O virgin fdaughter of Babylon;

gsit on the ground without a throne,

O daughter of hthe Chaldeans!

iFor you shall no more be called

tender and delicate.

²Take the millstones and jgrind flour,

kput off your veil,

strip off your robe, uncover your legs,

pass through the rivers.

³Your nakedness shall be uncovered,

and your disgrace shall be seen.

I will take vengeance,

and I will spare no one.

⁴lOur Redeemer—the Lord of hosts is his name—

is the Holy One of Israel.

⁵mSit in silence, and go into darkness,

O daughter of hthe Chaldeans;

for you shall no more be called

nthe mistress of kingdoms.

⁶oI was angry with my people;

I profaned my heritage;

I gave them into your hand;

pyou showed them no mercy;

on the aged you made your yoke exceedingly heavy.

⁷You said, “I shall be qmistress forever,”

so that you did not lay these things to heart

or remember their end.

⁸Now therefore hear this, qyou lover of pleasures,

rwho sit securely,

who say in your heart,

s“I am, and there is no one besides me;

tI shall not sit as a widow

or know the loss of children”:

⁹uThese two things shall come to you

in a moment, vin one day;

the loss of children and widowhood

shall come upon you in full measure,

win spite of your many sorceries

and the great power of your enchantments.

¹⁰You felt secure in your wickedness;

you said, “No one sees me”;

your wisdom and your knowledge led you astray,

and you said in your heart,

x“I am, and there is no one besides me.”

¹¹But evil shall come upon you,

which you will not know how to charm away;

disaster shall fall upon you,

for which you will not be able to atone;

yand ruin shall come upon you suddenly,

of which you know nothing.

¹²zStand fast in your enchantments

and your many sorceries,

with which you have labored from your youth;

perhaps you may be able to succeed;

perhaps you may inspire terror.

¹³You are wearied with your many counsels;

let them stand forth and save you,

athose who divide the heavens,

who gaze at the stars,

who at the new moons make known

what shall come upon you.

¹⁴Behold, bthey are like stubble;

cthe fire consumes them;

they cannot deliver themselves

from the power of the flame.

No coal for warming oneself is this,

no fire to sit before!

¹⁵Such to you are those with whom you have labored,

who have done business with you from your youth;

they wander about, each in his own direction;

there is no one to save you.

The Great Prostitute and the Beast

¹Then vone of the seven angels who had wthe seven bowls came and said to me, “Come, I will show you the judgment of xthe great prostitute ywho is seated on many waters, ²zwith whom the kings of the earth have committed sexual immorality, and awith the wine of whose sexual immorality bthe dwellers on earth have become drunk.” ³And che carried me away in the Spirit dinto a wilderness, and I saw a woman sitting on ea scarlet beast that was full of fblasphemous names, and git had seven heads and ten horns. ⁴The woman hwas arrayed in purple and scarlet, and adorned iwith gold and jewels and pearls, holding in her hand ja golden cup full of abominations and the impurities of her sexual immorality. ⁵And on her forehead was written a name of kmystery: l“Babylon the great, mother of prostitutes and of earth's abominations.” ⁶And I saw the woman, drunk mwith the blood of the saints, the blood of nthe martyrs of Jesus.1

When I saw her, I marveled greatly. ⁷But the angel said to me, “Why do you marvel? I will tell you othe mystery of the woman, and of the beast with seven heads and ten horns that carries her. ⁸The beast that you saw pwas, and is not, and qis about to rise from rthe bottomless pit2 and sgo to destruction. And tthe dwellers on earth whose names have not been written in uthe book of life from the foundation of the world will marvel to see the beast, because pit was and is not and is to come. ⁹vThis calls for a mind with wisdom: the seven heads are seven mountains on which the woman is seated; ¹⁰they are also seven kings, five of whom have fallen, one is, the other has not yet come, and when he does come he must remain only a little while. ¹¹As for the beast wthat was and is not, it is an eighth but it belongs to the seven, and it goes to destruction. ¹²And xthe ten horns that you saw are ten kings who have not yet received royal power, but they are to receive authority as kings yfor one hour, together with the beast. ¹³These are of one mind, and they hand over their power and authority to the beast. ¹⁴They zwill make war on the Lamb, and athe Lamb will conquer them, for he is bLord of lords and bKing of kings, and those with him are ccalled and chosen and faithful.”

¹⁵And the angel3 said to me, d“The waters that you saw, where the prostitute is seated, are peoples and multitudes and nations and languages. ¹⁶And ethe ten horns that you saw, they and the beast fwill hate the prostitute. They will make her gdesolate and hnaked, and idevour her flesh and jburn her up with fire, ¹⁷for kGod has put it into their hearts to carry out his purpose by being of one mind and lhanding over their royal power to the beast, until the words of God are fulfilled. ¹⁸And the woman that you saw is mthe great city that has dominion over the kings of the earth.”