2 Samuel 11

David and Bathsheba

1In the spring, at the time when messengers go out, David sent Joab out with his officers and all Israel; they destroyed the Ammonites and besieged Rabbah. But David stayed behind in Jerusalem.* 2One evening David got up from his bed and walked around on the roof of the palace, and from the roof he saw a woman bathing. She was very beautiful, 3and David sent someone to find out about her. The man said, “Isn’t this Bathsheba daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite?” 4So David sent messengers to get her. She came to him, and he slept with her — she had just purified herself from her monthly uncleanness — and then she returned home. 5The woman conceived and sent word to David, “I am pregnant.” 6David sent word to Joab, “Send me Uriah the Hittite.” So Joab sent Uriah to David. 7When Uriah came to him, David asked how Joab was doing, how the troops were doing, and how the war was going. 8Then David said to Uriah, “Go down to your house and wash your feet.” Uriah left the palace, and a gift from the king followed him. 9But Uriah slept at the entrance of the palace with all his lord’s servants and did not go down to his house. 10When David was told, “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?” 11Uriah said to David, “The ark, and Israel, and Judah are staying in tents, and my lord Joab and my lord’s men are camped in the open field. Should I then go to my house to eat and drink and sleep with my wife? As surely as you live, I will not do such a thing.” 12David said to Uriah, “Stay here one more day, and tomorrow I will send you back.” So Uriah stayed in Jerusalem that day and the next. 13David invited him to eat and drink with him, and got him drunk. But in the evening Uriah went out to sleep on his mat among his lord’s servants; he did not go down to his house. 14The next morning David wrote a letter to Joab and sent it with Uriah. 15In the letter he wrote, “Put Uriah at the front of the fiercest fighting, and then withdraw from him so that he will be struck down and die.” 16So as Joab kept watch on the city, he stationed Uriah at a place where he knew the strongest defenders were. 17When the men of the city came out and fought against Joab, some of David’s men fell; and Uriah the Hittite died too. 18Joab sent David a full report of the battle, 19and instructed the messenger, “When you have finished telling the king everything about the battle, 20the 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 from the wall? 21Who killed Abimelech son of Jerubbesheth? Wasn’t it a woman who threw an upper millstone down on him from the wall at Thebez, so that he died? Why did you get so close to the wall?’ Then you are to say, ‘Your servant Uriah the Hittite is dead too.’” 22The messenger set out, and when he arrived he told David everything Joab had sent him to say. 23The messenger said to David, “The men overpowered us and came out against us in the open, but we drove them back to the entrance of the gate. 24Then the archers shot at your servants from the wall, and some of the king’s men died — and your servant Uriah the Hittite is dead too.” 25David said to the messenger, “Tell Joab this: Don’t let this matter upset you, for the sword devours one as easily as another. Press the attack harder against the city and destroy it. Say this to encourage him.” 26When Uriah’s wife heard that her husband Uriah was dead, she mourned for him. 27When the time of mourning was over, David sent for her and brought her to his house, and she became his wife and bore him a son. But what David had done was evil in the eyes of Yahweh.