¹⁴ In the morning it happened that David ^(A)wrote a letter to Joab and sent it by the hand of Uriah. ¹⁵ And he wrote in the letter, saying, “Set Uriah in the forefront of the ^[a]hottest battle, and retreat from him, that he may ^(B)be struck down and die.” ¹⁶ So it was, while Joab besieged the city, that he assigned Uriah to a place where he knew there were valiant men. ¹⁷ Then the men of the city came out and fought with Joab. And some of the people of the servants of David fell; and Uriah the Hittite died also.

¹⁸ Then Joab sent and told David all the things concerning the war, ¹⁹ and charged the messenger, saying, “When you have finished telling the matters of the war to the king, ²⁰ if it happens that the king’s wrath rises, and he says to you: ‘Why did you approach so near to the city when you fought? Did you not know that they would shoot from the wall? ²¹ Who struck ^(C)Abimelech the son of ^[b]Jerubbesheth? Was it not a woman who cast a piece of a millstone on him from the wall, so that he died in Thebez? Why did you go near the wall?’—then you shall say, ‘Your servant Uriah the Hittite is dead also.’ ”

²² So the messenger went, and came and told David all that Joab had sent by him. ²³ And the messenger said to David, “Surely the men prevailed against us and came out to us in the field; then we drove them back as far as the entrance of the gate. ²⁴ The archers shot from the wall at your servants; and some of the king’s servants are dead, and your servant Uriah the Hittite is dead also.”

²⁵ Then David said to the messenger, “Thus you shall say to Joab: ‘Do not let this thing ^[c]displease you, for the sword devours one as well as another. Strengthen your attack against the city, and overthrow it.’ So encourage him.”

²⁶ When the wife of Uriah heard that Uriah her husband was dead, she mourned for her husband. ²⁷ And when her mourning was over, David sent and brought her to his house, and she ^(D)became his wife and bore him a son. But the thing that David had done ^(E)displeased^[d] the Lord.