“that they not teach you to follow all their abominations, which they have done for their gods; so would you sin against Yahweh your God.”
Deuteronomy 20:18 (WEB)
Context Reading
16But of the cities of these peoples that Yahweh your God gives you for an inheritance, you shall save alive nothing that breathes; 17but you shall utterly destroy them: the Hittite, the Amorite, the Canaanite, the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite, as Yahweh your God has commanded you; 18that they not teach you to follow all their abominations, which they have done for their gods; so would you sin against Yahweh your God. 19When you shall besiege a city a long time, in making war against it to take it, you shall not destroy its trees by wielding an ax against them; for you may eat of them. You shall not cut them down, for is the tree of the field man, that it should be besieged by you? 20Only the trees that you know are not trees for food, you shall destroy and cut them down. You shall build bulwarks against the city that makes war with you, until it falls.