Deuteronomy 20:18-20

Modern English Version

¹⁸ so that they do not teach you to participate in all their abominations, which they have done to their gods, causing you to sin against the Lord your God.

¹⁹ When you lay siege to a city for a long time, in making war against it in order to take it, you shall not destroy the trees there by chopping them down with an axe, for you may eat from them, and you shall not cut them down. For the tree of the field is not a man in which to lay siege. ²⁰ However, you may destroy and cut down only the trees which you know are not fruit trees, so that you may build siege engines against the city that makes war with you until it falls.