2 Samuel 11

VIN(i) 1 In the spring, at the time of the year when kings usually go to war, David sent out Joab with his officers and the Israelite army. They destroyed the Ammonites and besieged the city of Rabbah. David stayed in Jerusalem. 2 At evening, David arose from his bed and walked on the roof of the king's house. From the roof, he saw a woman bathing, and the woman was very beautiful to look at. 3 David sent and inquired after the woman. One said, "Isn't this Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite?" 4 Then David sent messengers and took her, and she came to him, and he slept with her. (Now she had been purifying herself from her uncleanness.) And she returned to her house. 5 And the woman conceived, and sent and told David, saying, I am with child. 6 And David sent to Joab, saying, Send me Uriah the Hittite. And Joab sent Uriah to David. 7 When Uriah arrived, David asked him how Joab and the troops were and how the war was going. 8 And David said to Uriah, Go down to your house and wash your feet. And Uriah left the king's house. And a gift from the king went out after him. 9 But Uriah slept at the entrance of the king's house with all the servants of his master and did not go down to his house. 10 They told David, "Uriah did not go down to his house." David said to Uriah, "Are you not coming from a journey? Why did you not go down to your house?" 11 Uriah said to David, "The ark, Israel, and Judah, are staying in tents; and my lord Joab, and the servants of my lord, are camped in the open field. Shall I then go into my house to eat and to drink, and to lie with my wife? As you live, and as your soul lives, I will not do this thing." 12 Then David invited Uriah, "Stay here today, and tomorrow I'll send you back." So Uriah remained in Jerusalem all that day and the next. 13 And David invited him, and he ate and drank before him; and he made him drunk. And in the evening he went out to lie on his couch with the servants of his lord, but did not go down to his house. 14 In the morning, David wrote a letter to Joab, and sent it by the hand of Uriah. 15 The letter said: "Put Uriah on the front line where the fighting is the worst. Pull the troops back from him, so that he will be wounded and die." 16 Wherefore as Joab was besieging the city, he put Urias in the place where he knew the bravest men were. 17 When the men of the city came out to fight Joab, some of David's army staff members fell, and Uriah the Hittite died, too. 18 Joab sent and told David all of the news of the battle. 19 And he commanded the messenger: "When you finish telling the king about the battle, 20 the king may become angry. He might ask you: 'Why did you go so close to the city to fight? Did you not know they would shoot from the wall?' 21 Who killed Abimelech the son of Jerubbesheth? Did not a woman cast an upper millstone upon him from the wall so that he died at Thebez? Why did you go so near the wall? Then you will say, Your servant Uriah the Hittite is dead also. 22 The messenger left. When he arrived he reported to David everything Joab told him to say. 23 The messenger said to David, "The men surprised us and attacked us in the field, but we drove them back to the entrance of the city gate. 24 And the archers shot at your servants from off the wall, and some of the king's servants died, and your servant Uriah the Hittite is dead also. 25 Then David said to the messenger, So you shall say to Joab, Do not let this thing displease you, for the sword devours one as well as another. Make your battle stronger against the city and overthrow it. And you encourage him. 26 Uriah's wife heard that her husband was dead and she mourned for him. 27 And when the mourning was past, David sent and brought her to his house, and she became his wife, and bore him a son. But the thing that David had done displeased the LORD.