David and Bathsheba

11 In the spring, David sent out his army to attack the Ammonites. That was the time of year when kings go out to fight battles.^[a] Joab led the whole Israelite army, together with his officers. They attacked the Ammonites, and they won the fight against them. Israel's army made their camp all around Rabbah city. But David had stayed in Jerusalem.

² One evening, David got up from his bed. He walked around on the roof of his palace.^[b] From the roof he saw a woman who was washing herself. She was very beautiful. ³ David sent a servant to ask who she was. The servant told him, ‘She is Eliam's daughter, Bathsheba. She is the wife of Uriah the Hittite.’

⁴ Then David sent some servants to bring Bathsheba to him. She came to him and he slept with her. (She had just made herself clean from her monthly blood loss.) Then she returned to her home. ⁵ Later, Bathsheba realized that she was pregnant. She sent a message to tell David about it.

⁶ So David sent a message to Joab. He said, ‘Send Uriah the Hittite to me.’ So Joab sent Uriah to David. ⁷ When Uriah arrived, David asked him about Joab and the Israelite army. He asked Uriah about the war. ⁸ Then David said to Uriah, ‘Now go to your house and rest for a time.’ So Uriah left the palace. Then King David sent a gift to him at home. ⁹ But Uriah slept at the door of the palace, together with his master's servants. He did not go to his house.

¹⁰ David's servants told him, ‘Uriah did not go to his house last night.’ So David said to Uriah, ‘You have just arrived after a long journey. Why did you not go to your house?’

¹¹ Uriah said to David, ‘The armies of Israel and Judah are all living in tents, as well as the Covenant Box. My master Joab and the soldiers of your army are sleeping in the fields. So I cannot go to my house and eat a meal there. It would not be right for me to go home and sleep with my wife. As surely as you live, I promise that I would never do that!’

¹² David said to Uriah, ‘Stay here one more day. Tomorrow I will send you back to the war.’ So Uriah stayed in Jerusalem that day and the next day. ¹³ David asked him to come and eat a meal with him. David caused Uriah to drink a lot of wine so that he became drunk. But in the evening Uriah still did not go to his own house. He slept on his mat, where his master's servants all slept.

¹⁴ In the morning, David wrote a letter to Joab. Uriah took the letter to Joab. ¹⁵ In the letter, David told Joab, ‘Put Uriah at the front of all our soldiers, where the battle is most dangerous. Then tell the other soldiers to move back away from him. Then he will be alone and the enemy's soldiers will kill him.’

¹⁶ Joab's soldiers were all around Rabbah city and they were watching it carefully. Joab sent Uriah to fight near to the city, where the enemy's best soldiers were. ¹⁷ When some of the Ammonite soldiers came out of the city to fight Joab's army, they killed some of David's men. Uriah the Hittite was one of the men who died there.

Joab tells David that Uriah is dead

¹⁸ Joab wrote a report to tell David about the battle. ¹⁹ He told the man who was taking the message, ‘When you finish giving my report to the king, ²⁰ the king may be angry. He may ask you, “Why did you go and fight so near to the city? Surely you knew that they would shoot arrows from the walls. ²¹ Remember how a woman killed Jerub-Besheth's son, Abimelech. She threw a heavy stone down on him from the city wall in Thebez. You should not have gone so near to Rabbah's city wall.” If King David does say that, tell him, “Your servant, Uriah the Hittite is dead too.” ’

²² The man that Joab sent to David with his message arrived. He told David all the news that Joab had sent with him. ²³ The man said to David, ‘The enemy's men were stronger than us and they attacked us in the fields. But we chased them back as far as the gate of their city. ²⁴ Then enemy soldiers shot arrows from the city wall and some of your men died. Your servant, Uriah the Hittite, is also dead.’

²⁵ David said to the man that Joab had sent, ‘Tell Joab, “Do not be too upset. The enemy will always kill some of our men, and it could be anyone. Continue to attack the city even more strongly and then you will take it for us.” If you say that to Joab, he will not be so sad.’

²⁶ Uriah's wife heard the news that her husband was dead. She was very sad and she wept because of his death. ²⁷ The time for Uriah's wife to weep for her husband came to an end. Then David sent some of his men to bring her to his palace. She became David's wife. Later, she gave birth to a son. But the Lord was not pleased with David because of the bad things that David had done.

Nathan warns David

12 The Lord sent Nathan to go and speak to David.^[c] Nathan told this story to David, ‘There were two men who lived in the same town. One man was rich and the other man was poor. ² The rich man had very many sheep, goats and cows. ³ But the poor man had only one little female lamb. He had bought it and he had taken care of it. It had grown up with his own children. It ate his bits of food and it drank water from his cup. It even slept while he held it. It was like a daughter for him.

⁴ One day, the rich man had a visitor to his home. The rich man needed to make a meal for his visitor. But he did not want to kill one of his own animals. Instead, he took the poor man's lamb away from him. He cooked the lamb to feed his visitor.’

⁵ When David heard what the rich man had done, he became very angry. He said to Nathan, ‘As surely as the Lord lives, that man deserves to die. ⁶ He did that cruel thing and he was not sorry for the poor man. So he must pay the poor man enough money to buy four lambs.’

⁷ Then Nathan said to David, ‘You are that man! This is what the Lord, Israel's God, says: “I chose you as king to rule over Israel. I saved you from Saul's power. ⁸ I gave your master's palace to you, and his wives as well. I gave the kingdoms of Israel and Judah to you. And if that was not enough for you, I would have given you even more than that. ⁹ But now you have not respected the Lord's command. You have done an evil thing. You caused Uriah the Hittite to die in a battle. You used the Ammonite soldiers to kill Uriah. ¹⁰ So now your family will always have people who die in battle. When you took the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your own wife, you showed that you did not respect me.”

¹¹ This is what the Lord says, “I will cause someone from your own family to bring trouble to you. You yourself will see it happen! I will take your wives from you and I will give them to someone else. He will have sex with them in the daytime, for everyone to see. ¹² What you did, you did secretly. But I will cause this to happen in the light of day, so that all Israel can see it.” ’

¹³ Then David said to Nathan, ‘I have sinned against the Lord.’

Nathan replied, ‘The Lord has forgiven your sin. He will not punish you with death. ¹⁴ But you did not respect the Lord when you did this bad thing. Because of that, your baby son will certainly die.’ ¹⁵ Then Nathan went home.

David's son dies

After that, the Lord caused the child of Uriah's wife to become very ill. ¹⁶ David asked the Lord to make his child well again. He lay on the floor of his house all night and he ate no food. ¹⁷ His palace officers stood around him. They tried to help him to get up from the ground. But he refused and he would not eat anything with them.

¹⁸ On the seventh day, the child died. David's officers were afraid to tell him. They thought, ‘Even when the child was alive, David refused to listen to us. So what will happen if we tell him that the child is dead? He might try to hurt himself.’

¹⁹ But David saw that his officers were speaking secretly to each other. So he realized that the child had died. He asked them, ‘Is the child dead?’

They replied, ‘Yes, he is dead.’

²⁰ Then David got up from the ground and he washed himself. He put special oil on his body and he dressed himself in clean clothes. Then he went into the Lord's house to worship him. After that, he went back to his palace. He asked his servants to bring some food and he ate it.

²¹ His officers said to him, ‘We do not understand what you are doing. While the child was still alive, you refused to eat food and you wept. But now that the child is dead you are no longer weeping. You are moving around and you are eating. Why?’

²² David replied, ‘While the child was still alive, I wept and I did not eat anything. I thought that perhaps the Lord would be kind to me. I thought that he might let the child live. ²³ But now the child is dead. Even if I fast and I pray, I cannot bring him back to me. One day, I will go to the place where he is. But he will never come back here to me.’

²⁴ Then David went to comfort his wife, Bathsheba. He had sex with her as his wife. Later, she gave birth to a son. David gave him the name ‘Solomon’. The Lord loved the child, ²⁵ so he sent a message to David with Nathan, the prophet. He told David to call his son Jedidiah, because the Lord loved him.^[d]

David wins Rabbah

²⁶ At this time, Joab was attacking Rabbah, the Ammonite city. He had taken from the enemy the king's strong place in the city. ²⁷ Joab sent men to take this message to David: ‘I have attacked Rabbah. Now I have taken the place that holds the city's water. ²⁸ So you should bring the other soldiers of our army to make their camp here. Then you can attack the city and you can take it for us. If you do not do that, I will take the city myself. Then the city will have my name instead of yours.’

²⁹ So David brought all the soldiers of the army together. He led them to Rabbah. They attacked the city and they won against it. ³⁰ He took the crown off the Ammonite king's head. The crown was made of gold. It weighed 34 kilograms. There was a valuable jewel fixed on it. David's men then put the crown on David's head. David also took a lot of valuable things from the city. ³¹ He brought the people out from the city to do hard work for him. He made them cut wood with saws, and use iron tools and axes. He also made them work at the brick ovens. He did the same thing to the people of all the other Ammonite cities.

Then David and all his army returned to Jerusalem.