Chronological
11 In the spring of the following year, at the time when wars begin, David sent Joab and the Israeli army to destroy the Ammonites. They began by laying siege to the city of Rabbah. But David stayed in Jerusalem.
2 One night he couldn’t get to sleep[a] and went for a stroll on the roof of the palace. As he looked out over the city, he noticed a woman of unusual beauty taking her evening bath. 3 He sent to find out who she was and was told that she was Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam and the wife of Uriah. 4 Then David sent for her and when she came he slept with her. (She had just completed the purification rites after menstruation.) Then she returned home. 5 When she found that he had gotten her pregnant she sent a message to inform him.
6 So David dispatched a memo to Joab: “Send me Uriah the Hittite.” 7 When he arrived, David asked him how Joab and the army were getting along and how the war was prospering. 8 Then he told him to go home and relax, and he sent a present to him at his home. 9 But Uriah didn’t go there. He stayed that night at the gateway of the palace with the other servants of the king.
10 When David heard what Uriah had done, he summoned him and asked him, “What’s the matter with you? Why didn’t you go home to your wife last night after being away for so long?”
11 Uriah replied, “The Ark and the armies and the general and his officers are camping out in open fields, and should I go home to wine and dine and sleep with my wife? I swear that I will never be guilty of acting like that.”
12 “Well, stay here tonight,” David told him, “and tomorrow you may return to the army.”
So Uriah stayed around the palace. 13 David invited him to dinner and got him drunk; but even so he didn’t go home that night, but again he slept at the entry to the palace.
14 Finally the next morning David wrote a letter to Joab and gave it to Uriah to deliver. 15 The letter instructed Joab to put Uriah at the front of the hottest part of the battle—and then pull back and leave him there to die! 16 So Joab assigned Uriah to a spot close to the besieged city where he knew that the enemies’ best men were fighting; 17 and Uriah was killed along with several other Israeli soldiers.
18 When Joab sent a report to David of how the battle was going, 19-21 he told his messenger, “If the king is angry and asks, ‘Why did the troops go so close to the city? Didn’t they know there would be shooting from the walls? Wasn’t Abimelech killed at Thebez by a woman who threw down a millstone on him?’—then tell him, ‘Uriah was killed too.’”
22 So the messenger arrived at Jerusalem and gave the report to David.
23 “The enemy came out against us,” he said, “and as we chased them back to the city gates, 24 the men on the wall attacked us; and some of our men were killed, and Uriah the Hittite is dead too.”
25 “Well, tell Joab not to be discouraged,” David said. “The sword kills one as well as another![b] Fight harder next time, and conquer the city; tell him he is doing well.”
26 When Bathsheba heard that her husband was dead, she mourned for him; 27 then, when the period of mourning was over, David sent for her and brought her to the palace and she became one of his wives; and she gave birth to his son. But the Lord was very displeased with what David had done.
12 1-2 So the Lord sent the prophet Nathan to tell David this story:
“There were two men in a certain city, one very rich, owning many flocks of sheep and herds of goats; 3 and the other very poor, owning nothing but a little lamb he had managed to buy. It was his children’s pet, and he fed it from his own plate and let it drink from his own cup; he cuddled it in his arms like a baby daughter. 4 Recently a guest arrived at the home of the rich man. But instead of killing a lamb from his own flocks for food for the traveler, he took the poor man’s lamb and roasted it and served it.”
5 David was furious. “I swear by the living God,” he vowed, “any man who would do a thing like that should be put to death; 6 he shall repay four lambs to the poor man for the one he stole and for having no pity.”
7 Then Nathan said to David, “You are that rich man! The Lord God of Israel says, ‘I made you king of Israel and saved you from the power of Saul. 8 I gave you his palace and his wives and the kingdoms of Israel and Judah; and if that had not been enough, I would have given you much, much more. 9 Why, then, have you despised the laws of God and done this horrible deed? For you have murdered Uriah and stolen his wife. 10 Therefore murder shall be a constant threat in your family from this time on because you have insulted me by taking Uriah’s wife. 11 I vow that because of what you have done, I will cause your own household to rebel against you. I will give your wives to another man, and he will go to bed with them in public view.[c] 12 You did it secretly, but I will do this to you openly, in the sight of all Israel.’”
13 “I have sinned against the Lord,” David confessed to Nathan.
Then Nathan replied, “Yes, but the Lord has forgiven you, and you won’t die for this sin. 14 But you have given great opportunity to the enemies of the Lord to despise and blaspheme him, so your child shall die.”
15 Then Nathan returned to his home. And the Lord made Bathsheba’s baby deathly sick. 16 David begged him to spare the child and went without food, and lay all night before the Lord on the bare earth. 17 The leaders of the nation pleaded with him to get up and eat with them, but he refused. 18 Then, on the seventh day, the baby died. David’s aides were afraid to tell him.
“He was so broken up about the baby being sick,” they said, “what will he do to himself when we tell him the child is dead?”
19 But when David saw them whispering, he realized what had happened.
“Is the baby dead?” he asked.
“Yes,” they replied, “he is.” 20 Then David got up off the ground, washed himself, brushed his hair, changed his clothes, and went into the Tabernacle and worshiped the Lord. Then he returned to the palace and ate. 21 His aides were amazed.
“We don’t understand you,” they told him. “While the baby was still living, you wept and refused to eat; but now that the baby is dead, you have stopped your mourning and are eating again.”
22 David replied, “I fasted and wept while the child was alive, for I said, ‘Perhaps the Lord will be gracious to me and let the child live.’ 23 But why should I fast when he is dead? Can I bring him back again? I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me.”
24 Then David comforted Bathsheba; and when he slept with her, she conceived and gave birth to a son and named him Solomon. And the Lord loved the baby, 25 and sent congratulations[d] and blessings through Nathan the prophet. David nicknamed the baby Jedidiah (meaning, “Beloved of Jehovah”) because of the Lord’s interest. 26-27 Meanwhile Joab and the Israeli army were successfully ending their siege of Rabbah the capital of Ammon. Joab sent messengers to tell David, “Rabbah and its beautiful harbor are ours![e] 28 Now bring the rest of the army and finish the job, so that you will get the credit for the victory instead of me.”
29-30 So David led his army to Rabbah and captured it. Tremendous amounts of loot were carried back to Jerusalem, and David took the king of Rabbah’s crown—a $50,000 treasure made from solid gold set with gems—and placed it on his own head. 31 He made slaves of the people of the city and made them labor with saws, picks, and axes and work in the brick kilns;[f] that is the way he treated all of the cities of the Ammonites. Then David and the army returned to Jerusalem.
20 The following spring (spring was the season when wars usually began) Joab led the Israeli army in successful attacks against the cities and villages of the people of Ammon. After destroying them, he laid siege to Rabbah and conquered it. Meanwhile, David had stayed in Jerusalem. 2 When David arrived on the scene, he removed the crown from the head of King Milcom[a] of Rabbah and placed it upon his own head. It was made of gold inlaid with gems and weighed seventy-five pounds! David also took great amounts of plunder from the city. 3 He drove the people from the city and set them to work with saws,[b] iron picks, and axes, as was his custom with all the conquered Ammonite peoples. Then David and all his army returned to Jerusalem.
4 The next war was against the Philistines again, at Gezer. But Sibbecai, a man from Hushath, killed one of the sons of the giant, Sippai, and so the Philistines surrendered. 5 During another war with the Philistines, Elhanan (the son of Jair) killed Lahmi, the brother of Goliath the giant; the handle of his spear was like a weaver’s beam! 6-7 During another battle, at Gath, a giant with six fingers on each hand and six toes on each foot (his father was also a giant) defied and taunted Israel; but he was killed by David’s nephew Jonathan, the son of David’s brother Shimea. 8 These giants were descendants of the giants of Gath, and they were killed by David and his soldiers.
The Living Bible copyright © 1971 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.