2 Samuel 11

¹When the year came round again, at the season when kings set out on campaign, David sent out Joab with his officers and the whole army of Israel. They ravaged the Ammonites and besieged Rabbah. But David himself stayed behind in Jerusalem.^a

David and Bathsheba

²As evening came on, David got up from where he had been lying and walked back and forth on the roof of the royal palace. From the roof he saw a woman bathing, and she was very beautiful to look at. ³David sent someone to ask about the woman, and the answer came back, “Is that not Bathsheba, Eliam’s daughter, the wife of Uriah the Hittite?” ⁴David sent messengers and had her brought. She came to him, and he slept with her; she was purifying herself from her uncleanness. Then she went back to her house.^{b 5}The woman found she had conceived, and she sent to let David know: “I am pregnant.” ⁶Then David sent orders to Joab: “Have Uriah the Hittite sent to me.” So Joab sent Uriah to David. ⁷When Uriah arrived, David asked him how Joab was, how the troops were, and how the war was going. ⁸Then David told Uriah, “Go down to your house and wash your feet.” Uriah left the palace, and a present from the king was carried out after him. ⁹Uriah, however, spent the night at the palace door alongside all his lord’s servants. He did not go down to his own house. ¹⁰Word reached David that Uriah had not gone down to his house. So David asked him, “You have just come back from a journey, have you not? Why did you not go down to your house?” ¹¹Uriah answered David, “The ark and Israel and Judah are living in shelters, and my lord Joab and my lord’s men are camped out in the open country. Am I to go off to my own house, eat and drink, and sleep with my wife? I swear by your life, by your very life, I will not do this!”^{c 12}Then David told Uriah, “Stay here one more day, and tomorrow I will let you go.” So Uriah remained in Jerusalem that day and the next. ¹³David invited him, and Uriah ate and drank in his presence, and David got him drunk. But in the evening Uriah went out to lie down on his mat among his lord’s servants; he did not go down to his house. ¹⁴Next morning David wrote to Joab and had Uriah carry the letter. ¹⁵In the letter he wrote, “Station Uriah in the front line where the battle is heaviest. Then fall back from him, so that he is struck down and dies.”

Uriah is killed

¹⁶Joab had the city closely watched, and he posted Uriah at a spot where he knew the enemy had its bravest fighters. ¹⁷The defenders came out of the city and fought Joab’s forces. A number of the troops, David’s men, fell, and Uriah the Hittite died as well. ¹⁸Joab sent a messenger to tell David everything that had happened in the fighting. ¹⁹He gave the messenger these instructions: “When you have finished telling the king the whole story of the battle, ²⁰and if the king flares up in anger and asks you, ‘Why did you go so close to the city to fight? Did you not know they would shoot down from the wall? ²¹Who killed Abimelech son of Jerubbesheth? Was it not a woman? She let an upper millstone fall on him from the top of the wall, and he died at Thebez. Why did you go near the wall?’ then tell him, ‘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.^{d 23}The messenger told David, “The enemy were stronger than we were and came out at us in the open country, but we pushed them back as far as the gate. ²⁴Then the archers shot at your men from the wall. Some of the king’s men are dead, and your servant Uriah the Hittite is dead too.”

²⁵David said to the messenger, “Tell Joab this: ‘Do not let this matter look evil to you. The sword devours now one and now another. Strengthen your attack on the city and tear it down.’ So encourage him.” ²⁶Word reached Uriah’s wife that her husband Uriah was dead, and she lamented for her husband. ²⁷Once her time of mourning was over, David sent for her and took her into his household. She became his wife, and she gave birth to a son for him. But the thing David had done was evil in the eyes of the LORD.