2 Samuel 11

1In the spring of the year, the time when kings go out to war, David sent out Joab with his servants and all Israel. They ravaged the Ammonites and besieged Rabbah. But David stayed in Jerusalem.

2One evening David got up from his bed and was walking about on the roof of the palace. From the roof he saw a woman bathing, and the woman was very beautiful.

3David sent someone to find out about the woman, and someone said, “Is this not Bathsheba daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite?”

4Then David sent messengers and took her. She came to him, and he slept with her; she had been purifying herself from her uncleanness. Then she went back to her house.

5The woman conceived, and she sent word to David: “I am pregnant.”

6So David sent this message to Joab: “Send me Uriah the Hittite.” And Joab sent Uriah to David.

7When Uriah came to him, David asked how Joab was doing, how the troops were doing, and how the war was going.

8Then David said to Uriah, “Go down to your house and wash your feet.” So Uriah left the palace, and a gift from the king was sent after him.

9But Uriah slept at the entrance of the palace with all his lord’s servants, and he did not go down to his house.

10When David was told, “Uriah did not go down to his house,” David said to Uriah, “Have you not just come from a journey? Why did you not go down to your house?”

11Uriah said to David, “The ark and Israel and Judah are staying in shelters, and my lord Joab and my lord’s servants are camped in the open field. Should I then go to my house to eat and drink and sleep with my wife? As surely as you live, and as your soul lives, I will not do such a thing!”

12Then David said to Uriah, “Stay here today too, and tomorrow I will send you back.” So Uriah stayed in Jerusalem that day and the next.

13David invited him, and he ate and drank with him, and David got him drunk. But in the evening Uriah went out to sleep on his mat with his lord’s servants, and he did not go down to his house.

14In the morning David wrote a letter to Joab and sent it with Uriah.

15In the letter he wrote, “Put Uriah in the front line, where the fighting is fiercest. Then pull back from him, so that he will be struck down and die.”

16So as Joab was besieging the city, he assigned Uriah to the place where he knew the strongest defenders were.

17The men of the city came out and fought against Joab, and some of the troops, some of David’s servants, fell. Uriah the Hittite also died.

18Then Joab sent David a full report of the battle.

19He instructed the messenger, “When you have finished telling the king all about the battle,

20the king’s anger may flare up, and he may say to you, ‘Why did you go so near the city to fight? Did you not know that they would shoot from the wall?

21Who killed Abimelech son of Jerubbesheth? Was it not a woman who threw an upper millstone down on him from the wall, so that he died at Thebez? Why did you go so near the wall?’ If he does, then say, ‘Your servant Uriah the Hittite is dead too.’”

22So the messenger set out, and when he arrived, he told David everything Joab had sent him to say.

23The messenger said to David, “The men overpowered us and came out against us in the open field, but we drove them back to the entrance of the gate.

24Then the archers shot at your servants from the wall, and some of the king’s servants died. Your servant Uriah the Hittite is dead too.”

25David said to the messenger, “Tell Joab this: ‘Do not let this matter upset you, for the sword devours one person as well as another. Press your attack against the city and overthrow it.’ And encourage him.”

26When Uriah’s wife heard that her husband Uriah was dead, she mourned for her husband.

27When the time of mourning was over, David sent for her and brought her into his house, and she became his wife and bore him a son. But what David had done was evil in the eyes of Yahweh.