'City' in the Bible

At the same time we took all his cities and utterly destroyed every city—men, women and children. We left no survivor.

From Aroer, which is on the edge of the Arnon Valley, and from the city which is in the valley, as far as Gilead, there was no city [whose wall was] too high and too strong for us; the Lord our God handed over everything to us.

We captured all his cities at that time; there was not a city which we did not take from them: sixty cities, the whole region of Argob, the kingdom of Og in Bashan.

We utterly destroyed them, just as we did to Sihon king of Heshbon, utterly destroying every city—the men, women, and children.

that some worthless and evil men have gone out from among you and have tempted the inhabitants of their city [to sin], saying, ‘Let us go and serve other gods’ (whom you have not known),

you shall most certainly strike the inhabitants of that city with the edge of the sword, utterly destroying it and all that is in it, even its livestock with the edge of the sword.

Then you shall collect all its spoil (plunder) into the middle of its open square and burn the city and set fire to the spoil as a whole burnt offering to the Lord your God. It shall be a ruin forever. It shall not be built again.

then the elders of his own city shall send for him and have him taken back from there and turn him over to the avenger of blood, so that he may be put to death.

“When you advance to a city to fight against it, you shall [first] offer it terms of peace.

If that city accepts your terms of peace and opens its gates to you, then all the people who are found in it shall become your forced labor and shall serve you.

Only the women and the children and the animals and everything that is in the city, all its spoil, you shall take as plunder for yourself; and you shall use the spoil of your enemies which the Lord your God has given you.

“When you besiege a city for a long time, making war against it in order to capture it, you shall not destroy its [fruit-bearing] trees by swinging an axe against them; for you may eat from them, and you shall not cut them down. For is the tree of the field a man, that it should be besieged (destroyed) by you?

Only the trees which you know are not fruit trees shall you destroy and cut down, so that you may build siegeworks against the city that is making war with you until it falls.

It shall be that the elders of the city which is nearest to the dead man shall take a heifer of the herd, one which has not been worked and which has not pulled in a yoke;

and the elders of that city shall bring the heifer down to a [river] valley with running water, which has not been plowed or planted, and shall break the heifer’s neck there in the valley.

All the elders of that city nearest to the dead man shall wash their hands over the heifer whose neck was broken in the valley;

then his father and mother shall take hold of him, and bring him out to the elders of his city at the gateway of his hometown.

They shall say to the elders of his city, ‘This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious; he will not obey us, he is a glutton and a drunkard.’

Then all the men of his city shall stone him to death; so you shall remove the evil from among you, and all Israel will hear of it and be afraid.

then the young woman’s father and her mother shall get and bring out the evidence of her virginity to the elders of the city at the gate [where court is held].

and behold, he has made baseless charges against her, saying, “I did not find in your daughter the evidence of her virginity.” But this is the evidence of my daughter’s virginity.’ And they shall spread out the garment before the elders of the city.

Then the elders of that city shall take the man and reprimand him,

then they shall bring her out to the doorway of her father’s house, and the men of her city shall stone her to death because she has committed a deliberate sin in Israel by playing the prostitute in her father’s house. So you shall remove the evil from among you.

“If a young woman who is a virgin is engaged (legally betrothed) to a man, and another man finds her in the city and is intimate with her,

then you shall bring them both out to the gate of that city and stone them to death—the young woman because she did not cry out for help [though she was] in the city, and the man because he has violated his neighbor’s [promised] wife. So you shall remove the evil from among you.

Then the elders of his city will summon him and speak to him. And if he stands firm and says, ‘I do not want to marry her,’

“You will be blessed in the city, and you will be blessed in the field.

“You will be cursed in the city and cursed in the field.

and the Negev (South country) and the plain in the Valley of Jericho, the city of palm trees, as far as Zoar.