11 In the springtime of the year, the season when most kings took their soldiers out to fight, David stayed in Jerusalem and sent Joab out as general in charge of David’s men and the whole army of Israel. They destroyed the Ammonites and put the city of Rabbah under siege.

² Early one evening, David rose from his bed and was strolling on the palace roof when he saw a woman bathing on a roof below his. She was very beautiful. ³ David sent someone to find out who the woman was, and the answer came back that she was Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam and the wife of Uriah the Hittite. Uriah was one of David’s officers who had gone to war with the rest of David’s troops.