As noticed before, instead of cities the word “towns” or its equivalent may be more appropriate (so New Revised Standard Version).

Utterly destroyed every city, men, women, and children: some languages may require two different verbs to express the idea of destroying towns and killing people. In some languages we may say “Break down the towns and kill all the people.” In others a figurative expression such as “wipe the towns and people from the face of the earth” may be employed. The Hebrew verb belongs to the vocabulary of what is called “holy war,” in which the total slaughter of the people is portrayed as a religious act. Mayes’ comment is worth recording: “the verb charam is the technical term used for the extermination of the enemy in a holy war as well as for the exclusive reservation of certain things to Yahweh. The common factor is that the things so designated are not available for common use…”—and so have to be destroyed (see 13.16-18). An alternative translation model for this sentence may be “At that time we captured and destroyed every town and killed every man, woman, and child.”

We left none remaining: see New Revised Standard Version “We left not a single survivor,” or “not one person survived.”

Quoted with permission from Bratcher, Robert G. and Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on Deuteronomy. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2000. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .