²⁴ Absalom went to the king and said, “Your servant has had shearers come. Will the king and his attendants please join me?”

⁶ Ishmael son of Nethaniah went out from Mizpah to meet them, weeping^(A) as he went. When he met them, he said, “Come to Gedaliah son of Ahikam.”^{(B) 7} When they went into the city, Ishmael son of Nethaniah and the men who were with him slaughtered them and threw them into a cistern.^(C)

⁸ Then David said to Uriah, “Go down to your house and wash your feet.”^(A) So Uriah left the palace, and a gift from the king was sent after him. ⁹ But Uriah slept at the entrance to the palace with all his master’s servants and did not go down to his house.

¹⁰ David was told, “Uriah did not go home.” So he asked Uriah, “Haven’t you just come from a military campaign? Why didn’t you go home?”

¹¹ Uriah said to David, “The ark^(B) and Israel and Judah are staying in tents,^[a] and my commander Joab and my lord’s men are camped in the open country. How could I go to my house to eat and drink and make love^(C) to my wife? As surely as you live, I will not do such a thing!”

¹² Then David said to him, “Stay here one more day, and tomorrow I will send you back.” So Uriah remained in Jerusalem that day and the next. ¹³ At David’s invitation, he ate and drank with him, and David made him drunk. But in the evening Uriah went out to sleep on his mat among his master’s servants; he did not go home.

¹⁴ In the morning David wrote a letter^(D) to Joab and sent it with Uriah. ¹⁵ In it he wrote, “Put Uriah out in front where the fighting is fiercest. Then withdraw from him so he will be struck down^(E) and die.^(F)”