and when the Lord your God gives them over to you and you defeat them, then you must utterly destroy them. Make no covenant with them and show them no mercy.
Do not bring an abhorrent thing into your house, or you will be set apart for destruction like it. You must utterly detest and abhor it, for it is set apart for destruction.
Joshua took Makkedah on that day and struck it and its king with the edge of the sword; he utterly destroyed every person in it; he left no one remaining. And he did to the king of Makkedah as he had done to the king of Jericho.
So Joshua defeated the whole land, the hill country and the Negeb and the lowland and the slopes and all their kings; he left no one remaining but utterly destroyed all that breathed, as the Lord God of Israel had commanded.
All the spoil of these towns and the livestock the Israelites plundered for themselves, but all the people they struck down with the edge of the sword, until they had destroyed them, and they did not leave any who breathed.
Israel has sinned; they have transgressed my covenant that I imposed on them. They have taken some of the devoted things; they have stolen, they have acted deceitfully, and they have put them among their own belongings.
They answered Joshua, “Because it was told to your servants for a certainty that the Lord your God had commanded his servant Moses to give you all the land and to destroy all the inhabitants of the land before you, so we were in great fear for our lives because of you and did this thing.
Now go and attack Amalek and utterly destroy all that they have; do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.”