2 Samuel 11

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

² One evening David got up from his bed and walked around on the roof of the king's palace. From the roof he saw a woman bathing, and the woman was very beautiful.

³ David sent and inquired about the woman. Someone said, "Is this not Bathsheba daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite?"

⁴ David sent messengers and took her. She came to him, and he lay with her — she had been purifying herself from her uncleanness — and she returned to her house.

⁵ The woman conceived, and she sent and told David, "I am pregnant."

⁶ David sent word to Joab: "Send me Uriah the Hittite." So Joab sent Uriah to David.

⁷ When Uriah came to him, David asked about the welfare of Joab, the welfare of the troops, and how the war was going.

⁸ Then David said to Uriah, "Go down to your house and wash your feet." Uriah left the king's palace, and a gift from the king followed him.

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

¹⁰ When they told David, "Uriah did not go down to his house," David said to Uriah, "Haven't you just come from a journey? Why didn't you go down to your house?"

¹¹ Uriah said to David, "The ark and Israel and Judah are dwelling in booths, 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 lie with my wife? As you live, and as your soul lives, I will not do this thing!"

¹² David said to Uriah, "Stay here today also, and tomorrow I will send you back." So Uriah remained in Jerusalem that day and the next.

¹³ David invited him, and he ate and drank in his presence, and David made him drunk. But in the evening Uriah went out to lie on his bed with his lord's servants, and he 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 He wrote in the letter, "Place Uriah at the front of the fiercest fighting, then pull back from him so that he is struck down and dies."

¹⁶ When Joab was besieging the city, he assigned Uriah to the place where he knew the strongest warriors were.

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

¹⁸ Joab sent a report to David of all the events of the battle.

¹⁹ He instructed the messenger, "When you finish telling the king all the events of the battle,

²⁰ if the king's anger rises and he says to you, 'Why did you go so near the city to fight? Didn't you know they would shoot from the wall?

²¹ Who struck Abimelech son of Jerubbesheth? Didn't a woman throw an upper millstone on him from the wall so that he died at Thebez? Why did you go near the wall?' — then say, 'Your servant Uriah the Hittite is also dead.'"

²² The messenger went and came and told David everything Joab had sent him to report.

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

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

²⁵ David said to the messenger, "Say this to Joab: 'Do not let this matter trouble you, for the sword devours one as well as another. Intensify your attack against the city and overthrow it.' Encourage him."

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

²⁷ When the mourning period was over, 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 was evil in the eyes of the LORD.