﻿2 Samuel.
Chapter 11.
At the turn of the year, when kings go out to battle, David sent Joab, his servants with him and all Israel. They devastated the Ammonites and besieged Rabbah, but David stayed in Jerusalem. 
One evening David got up 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. 
David sent to inquire about the woman. Someone said, “Is this not Bathsheba daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite?” 
David sent messengers and took her. She came to him, and he lay with her. She was purifying herself from her uncleanness. Then she returned to her house. 
The woman conceived and sent word to David, saying, “I am pregnant.” 
David sent word to Joab, “Send me Uriah the Hittite.” So Joab sent Uriah to David. 
When Uriah came to him, David asked how Joab was, how the people were and how the war was going. 
David said to Uriah, “Go down to your house and wash your feet.” Uriah left the king’s house, and a gift from the king followed him. 
But Uriah slept at the entrance of the king’s house with all his lord’s servants and did not go down to his own house. 
David was told, “Uriah did not go down to his house.” David asked Uriah, “Have you not just come from a journey? Why did you not go down to your house?” 
Uriah said to David, “The ark, Israel and Judah are staying in shelters, and my lord Joab and my lord’s servants are camped in the open field. Shall I go to my house to eat, drink and lie with my wife? By your life, by your very life, I will not do such a thing!” 
David said to Uriah, “Stay here today as well, and tomorrow I will send you away.” So Uriah stayed in Jerusalem that day and the next. 
David invited him, and he ate and drank before him, and David made him drunk. In the evening Uriah went out to lie on his bed with his lord’s servants, but he did not go down to his house. 
In the morning David wrote a letter to Joab and sent it by Uriah’s hand. 
In the letter he wrote, “Put Uriah at the front, where the battle is fiercest. Then withdraw from him, so that he may be struck down and die.” 
As Joab watched the city, he placed Uriah where he knew there were valiant men. 
The men of the city came out and fought Joab. Some of the people, David’s servants, fell, and Uriah the Hittite also died. 
Joab sent a report to David of everything about the battle. 
He instructed the messenger, “When you have finished telling the king everything about the battle, 
if the king becomes angry and asks you, ‘Why did you go so close to the city to fight? Did you not know they would shoot from the wall? 
Who struck down Abimelech son of Jerubbesheth? Did not a woman throw a piece of an upper millstone on him from the wall, so that he died at Thebez? Why did you go close to the wall?’ then say, ‘Your servant Uriah the Hittite is dead as well.’” 
The messenger went, came to David and told him everything Joab had sent him to report. 
The messenger said to David, “The men were stronger than we were and came out against us in the field, but we pressed them back to the entrance of the gate. 
Then the archers shot at your servants from the wall, and some of the king’s servants died. Your servant Uriah the Hittite is dead as well.” 
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. Strengthen your attack against the city and overthrow it.’ Encourage him.” 
When Uriah’s wife heard that her husband Uriah was dead, she mourned for her husband. 
When the mourning was over, David sent for her and brought her to his house. She became his wife and bore him a son. But what David had done was evil in the LORD’s eyes. 
