2 Samuel 11-12

International Children’s Bible

David and Bathsheba

11 In the spring the kings would go out to war. So in the spring David sent out Joab, his servants and all the Israelites. They destroyed the Ammonites and attacked the city of Rabbah. But David stayed in Jerusalem. ² One evening David got up from his bed. He walked around on the roof^[a] of his palace. While he was on the roof, he saw a woman bathing. She was very beautiful. ³ So David sent his servants to find out who she was. A servant answered, “That woman is Bathsheba daughter of Eliam. She is the wife of Uriah the Hittite.” ⁴ David sent messengers to bring Bathsheba to him. When she came to him, he had physical relations with her. (Now Bathsheba had purified herself from her monthly period.) Then she went back to her house. ⁵ But Bathsheba became pregnant. She sent word to David, saying, “I am pregnant.”

⁶ So David sent this message to Joab: “Send Uriah the Hittite to me.” So Joab sent Uriah to David. ⁷ Uriah came to David. And David asked him how Joab was, how the soldiers were and how the war was going. ⁸ Then David said to Uriah, “Go home and rest.”

So Uriah left the palace. The king also sent a gift to him. ⁹ But Uriah did not go home. He slept outside the door of the palace. He slept there as all the king’s officers did.

¹⁰ The officers told David, “Uriah did not go home.”

Then David said to Uriah, “You came from a long trip. Why didn’t you go home?”

¹¹ Uriah said to him, “The Ark of the Covenant and the soldiers of Israel and Judah are staying in tents. My master Joab and his officers are camping out in the fields. It isn’t right for me to go home to eat and drink and have intimate relations with my wife!”

¹² David said to Uriah, “Stay here today. Tomorrow I’ll send you back to the battle.” So Uriah stayed in Jerusalem that day and the next. ¹³ Then David called Uriah to come to see him. Uriah ate and drank with David. David made Uriah drunk, but he still did not go home. That evening Uriah went to sleep with the king’s officers outside the king’s door.

¹⁴ The next morning David wrote a letter to Joab and sent it by Uriah. ¹⁵ In the letter David wrote, “Put Uriah on the front lines where the fighting is worst. Then leave him there alone. Let him be killed in battle.”

¹⁶ Joab watched the city and saw where its strongest defenders were. He put Uriah there. ¹⁷ The men of the city came out to fight against Joab. Some of David’s men were killed. And Uriah the Hittite was one of them.

¹⁸ Then Joab sent a report to David about everything that had happened in the war. ¹⁹ Joab told the messenger, “Tell King David what happened in the war. ²⁰ After you finish, the king may become angry. He may ask you, ‘Why did you go so near the city to fight? Didn’t you know they would shoot arrows from the city wall? ²¹ Do you remember who killed Abimelech son of Jerub-Besheth?^[b] It was a woman on the city wall. She threw a large stone for grinding grain on Abimelech. She killed him there in Thebez. Why did you go so near the wall?’ If King David asks that, you must answer, ‘Your servant Uriah the Hittite also died.’”

²² The messenger went in and told David everything Joab had told him to say. ²³ The messenger told David, “The men of Ammon were winning. They came out and attacked us in the field. But we fought them back to the city gate. ²⁴ The men on the city wall shot arrows at your servants. Some of your men were killed. Your servant Uriah the Hittite also died.”

²⁵ David said to the messenger, “Say this to Joab: ‘Don’t be upset about this. The sword kills everyone the same. Make a stronger attack against the city and capture it.’ Encourage Joab with these words.”

²⁶ When Bathsheba heard that her husband was dead, she cried for him. ²⁷ After she finished her time of sadness, David sent servants to bring her to his house. She became David’s wife and gave birth to his son. But the Lord did not like what David had done.

David’s Son Dies

12 The Lord sent Nathan to David. When Nathan came to David, Nathan said, “There were two men in a city. One man was rich, but the other was poor. ² The rich man had very many sheep and cattle. ³ But the poor man had nothing except one little female lamb he had bought. The poor man fed the lamb. It grew up with him and his children. It shared his food and drank from his cup. It slept in his arms. The lamb was like a daughter to him.

⁴ “Then a traveler stopped to visit the rich man. The rich man wanted to give food to the traveler. But he didn’t want to take one of his own sheep or cattle to feed the traveler. Instead, he took the lamb from the poor man. The rich man killed the lamb and cooked it for his visitor.”

⁵ David became very angry at the rich man. He said to Nathan, “As surely as the Lord lives, the man who did this should die! ⁶ He must pay for the lamb four times for doing such a thing. He had no mercy!”

⁷ Then Nathan said to David, “You are the man! This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: ‘I appointed you king of Israel. I saved you from Saul. ⁸ I gave you his kingdom and his wives. And I made you king of Israel and Judah. And if that had not been enough, I would have given you even more. ⁹ So why did you ignore the Lord’s command? Why did you do what he says is wrong? You killed Uriah the Hittite with the sword of the Ammonites! And you took his wife to become your wife! ¹⁰ So there will always be people in your family who will be killed by a sword. This is because you showed that you did not respect me! And you took the wife of Uriah the Hittite!’

¹¹ “This is what the Lord says: ‘I am bringing trouble to you from your own family. While you watch, I will take your wives from you. And I will give them to someone who is very close to you. He will have physical relations with your wives, and everyone will know it. ¹² You had physical relations with Bathsheba in secret. But I will do this so all the people of Israel can see it.’”

¹³ Then David said to Nathan, “I have sinned against the Lord.”

Nathan answered, “The Lord has taken away your sin. You will not die. ¹⁴ But what you did caused the Lord’s enemies to lose all respect for him. For this reason the son who was born to you will die.”

¹⁵ Then Nathan went home. And the Lord caused the son of David and Bathsheba, Uriah’s widow, to become very sick. ¹⁶ David prayed to God for the baby. David refused to eat or drink. He went into his house and stayed there. He lay on the ground all night. ¹⁷ The elders of David’s family came to him. They tried to pull him up from the ground. But he refused to get up. And he refused to eat food with them.

¹⁸ On the seventh day the baby died. David’s servants were afraid to tell him that the baby was dead. They said, “Look, we tried to talk to David while the baby was alive. But he refused to listen to us. If we tell him the baby is dead, he may harm himself.”

¹⁹ But David saw his servants whispering. Then he understood that the baby was dead. So he asked them, “Is the baby dead?”

They answered, “Yes, he is dead.”

²⁰ Then David got up from the floor. He washed himself, put lotions on himself and changed his clothes. Then he went into the Lord’s house to worship. After that, he went home and asked for something to eat. His servants gave him some food, and he ate.

²¹ David’s servants said to him, “Why are you doing this? When the baby was still alive, you refused to eat. You cried. But when the baby died, you got up and ate food.”

²² David said, “While the baby was still alive, I refused to eat, and I cried. I thought, ‘Who knows? Maybe the Lord will feel sorry for me and let the baby live.’ ²³ But now the baby is dead. So why should I go without food? I can’t bring him back to life. Some day I will go to him. But he cannot come back to me.”

²⁴ Then David comforted Bathsheba his wife. He slept with her and had intimate relations with her. She became pregnant again and had another son. David named the boy Solomon. The Lord loved Solomon. ²⁵ The Lord sent word through Nathan the prophet to name the baby Jedidiah.^[c] This was because the Lord loved the child.

David Captures Rabbah

²⁶ Now Joab fought against Rabbah, a city of the Ammonites. And he was about to capture the royal city. ²⁷ Joab sent messengers to David and said, “I have fought against Rabbah. I have captured its water supply. ²⁸ Now bring the other soldiers together and attack this city. Capture it before I capture it myself. If I capture this city, it will be called by my name!”

²⁹ So David gathered all the army and went to Rabbah. He fought against Rabbah and captured it. ³⁰ David took the crown off their king’s head. It was gold and weighed about 75 pounds. It also had gems in it. They put the crown on David’s head. And David took many valuable things out of the city. ³¹ He also brought out the people of the city. He made them work with saws, iron picks and axes. He also forced them to build with bricks. David did this to all the Ammonite cities. Then David and all his army went back to Jerusalem.