2 Samuel
11
- In the spring, at the time when kings go
off to war, David sent Joab out with the king's men and the whole Israelite
army. They destroyed the Ammonites and besieged Rabbah. But David remained
in Jerusalem.
- One evening David got up from his bed and
walked around on the roof of the palace. From the roof he saw a woman bathing.
The woman was very beautiful,
- and David sent someone to find out about
her. The man said, "Isn't this Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam and the
wife of Uriah the Hittite ?"
- Then David sent messengers to get her. She
came to him, and he slept with her. (She had purified herself from her uncleanness.)
Then she went back home.
- The woman conceived and sent word to David,
saying, "I am pregnant."
- So David sent this word to Joab: "Send
me Uriah the Hittite." And Joab sent him to David.
- When Uriah came to him, David asked him
how Joab was, how the soldiers were and how the war was going.
- Then 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.
- But Uriah slept at the entrance to the palace
with all his master's servants and did not go down to his house.
- When David was told, "Uriah did not
go home," he asked him, "Haven't you just come from a distance?
Why didn't you go home ?"
- Uriah said to David, "The ark and Israel
and Judah are staying in tents, and my master Joab and my lord's men are camped
in the open fields. How could I go to my house to eat and drink and lie with
my wife? As surely as you live, I will not do such a thing !"
- Then David said to him, "Stay here
one more day, and tomorrow I will send you back." So Uriah remained in
Jerusalem that day and the next.
- At David's invitation, he ate and drank
with him, and David made him drunk. But in the evening Uriah went out to sleep
on his mat among his master's servants; he did not go home.
- In the morning David wrote a letter to Joab
and sent it with Uriah.
- In it he wrote, "Put Uriah in the front
line where the fighting is fiercest. Then withdraw from him so he will be
struck down and die."
- So while Joab had the city under siege,
he put Uriah at a place where he knew the strongest defenders were.
- When the men of the city came out and fought
against Joab, some of the men in David's army fell; moreover, Uriah the Hittite
died.
- Joab sent David a full account of the battle.
- He instructed the messenger: "When
you have finished giving the king this account of the battle,
- the king's anger may flare up, and he may
ask you, 'Why did you get so close to the city to fight? Didn't you know they
would shoot arrows from the wall ?
- Who killed Abimelech son of Jerub-Besheth?
Didn't a woman throw an upper millstone on him from the wall, so that he died
in Thebez? Why did you get so close to the wall?' If he asks you this, then
say to him, 'Also, your servant Uriah the Hittite is dead.'"
- The messenger set out, and when he arrived
he told David everything Joab had sent him to say.
- The messenger said to David, "The men
overpowered us and came out against us in the open, but we drove them back
to the entrance to the city gate.
- Then the archers shot arrows at your servants
from the wall, and some of the king's men died. Moreover, your servant Uriah
the Hittite is dead."
- David told the messenger, "Say this
to Joab: 'Don't let this upset you; the sword devours one as well as another.
Press the attack against the city and destroy it.' Say this to encourage Joab."
- When Uriah's wife heard that her husband
was dead, she mourned for him.
- After the time of mourning was over, David
had her brought to his house, and she became his wife and bore him a son.
But the thing David had done displeased the LORD.
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