Deuteronomy 20:19-20

New American Standard Bible

¹⁹ “When you besiege a city for a long time, to make war against it in order to capture it, you shall not destroy its trees by swinging an axe against them; for you may eat from them, so you shall not cut them down. For ^[a]is the tree of the field a human, that it should ^[b]be besieged by you? ²⁰ Only the trees that you know ^[c]are not fruit trees you shall destroy and cut down, so that you may construct siegeworks against the city that is making war against you until it falls.