David Commits Adultery with Bathsheba

11 In the spring of the year, the time when kings go out to battle, David sent Joab with his officers and all Israel with him; they ravaged the Ammonites and besieged Rabbah. But David remained at Jerusalem.^(A)

² It happened, late one afternoon when David rose from his couch and was walking about on the roof of the king’s house, that he saw from the roof a woman bathing; the woman was very beautiful.^{(B) 3} David sent someone to inquire about the woman. It was reported, “This is Bathsheba daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite.”^{(C) 4} So David sent messengers to get her, and she came to him, and he lay with her. (Now she was purifying herself after her period.) Then she returned to her house.^{(D) 5} The woman conceived, and she sent and told David, “I am pregnant.”^(E)

²⁶ When the wife of Uriah heard that her husband was dead, she made lamentation for him.^{(A) 27} When the mourning was over, David sent and brought her to his house, and she became his wife and bore him a son.

Nathan Condemns David

But the thing that David had done displeased the Lord,^(B)

12 ¹ and the Lord sent Nathan to David. He came to him and said to him, “There were two men in a certain city, the one rich and the other poor.^{(A) 2} The rich man had very many flocks and herds, ³ but the poor man had nothing but one little ewe lamb that he had bought. He brought it up, and it grew up with him and with his children; it used to eat of his meager fare and drink from his cup and lie in his bosom, and it was like a daughter to him. ⁴ Now there came a traveler to the rich man, and he was loath to take one of his own flock or herd to prepare for the wayfarer who had come to him, but he took the poor man’s lamb and prepared that for the guest who had come to him.” ⁵ Then David’s anger was greatly kindled against the man. He said to Nathan, “As the Lord lives, the man who has done this deserves to die;^{(B) 6} he shall restore the lamb fourfold because he did this thing and because he had no pity.”^(C)

⁷ Nathan said to David, “You are the man! Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: I anointed you king over Israel, and I rescued you from the hand of Saul;^{(D) 8} I gave you your master’s house and your master’s wives into your bosom and gave you the house of Israel and of Judah, and if that had been too little, I would have added as much more. ⁹ Why have you despised the word of the Lord, to do what is evil in his sight? You have struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword and have taken his wife to be your wife and have killed him with the sword of the Ammonites.^(E)

Psalm 51

Prayer for Cleansing and Pardon

To the leader. A Psalm of David, when the prophet Nathan came to him, after he had gone in to Bathsheba.