Deuteronomy 20:16-20 - Laws Concerning War With Canaanite Nations

¹⁶ But from the cities of these peoples that Yahweh your God [is] giving to you as an inheritance, you shall not let anything live that breathes. ¹⁷ Rather, you shall utterly destroy them, the Hittites and the Amorites, the Canaanites and the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, [just] as Yahweh your God has commanded you, ¹⁸ so that they may not teach you to do like all their detestable things that they do for their gods and [thereby] you sin against Yahweh your God.

¹⁹ "If you besiege a town [for] many days to make war against it [in order to] seize it, you shall not destroy its trees by wielding an ax against them, for you may eat from them, and [so] you must not cut them down. Are the trees of the field humans that they should come in siege {against you}? ²⁰ Only the trees that you know {are not fruit trees} you may destroy and you may cut down, and you may build siege works against that city that is making war with you {until it falls}."