M’Cheyne Bible Reading Plan

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.

God's good news brings light

4 God has given us this work to speak his message. Because he has been so kind to us, we are not afraid to continue. ² We refuse to do anything secretly that we might be ashamed of. We do not tell lies. We do not change God's message to deceive people. No. We tell God's true message clearly. God himself sees that we teach people in an honest way. Everyone should understand that we only do what is right. ³ Some people may not understand the good news that we speak. They are only the people who are losing their lives with God. ⁴ Those people do not accept God's good news. The god of this world has confused their minds. They cannot see the light that the good news brings. That message teaches about the great power of Christ, who shows us exactly what God is like.

⁵ We do not speak a message about ourselves. We tell people that Jesus Christ is our Lord. Because we belong to Jesus, we have become your servants, not your masters. ⁶ God is the one who said, ‘Let light shine in the dark.’ And he is the one who has caused his light to shine deep inside us. Because of that, we know how great and powerful God is. We see that his power shines brightly in Christ's face.^[a]

⁷ God has given to us the gift to speak his message. But we ourselves are very weak. It is like we are keeping his valuable gift in clay pots. So it is clear that the great power of God's message comes from God himself. It does not come from us. ⁸ We receive trouble all the time, but that does not stop us. We do not always know what to do, but we are not afraid to continue. ⁹ We have many enemies, but we always have friends. People hurt us, but they never destroy us. ¹⁰ As we serve Jesus, we know that we may die as he died. Because of that, our lives show that we live because he is alive. ¹¹ Yes, as we live our lives, death is always very near, because we serve Jesus. As a result, people can see in our weak, human bodies that Jesus is alive. ¹² So death is near to us, even as we live. But as a result, we are bringing God's life to you.

¹³ This is written in the Bible: ‘I believed in God, and so I spoke.’^[b] We also have the same kind of faith in God. So we also speak God's message, because we believe in him. ¹⁴ God raised up the Lord Jesus, to become alive again after his death. Because we belong to Jesus, we know that God will also raise us up after we die. Together with you, God will take us to be where he is. ¹⁵ In everything that we do, we want to help you. As a result, more and more people are seeing how kind God is. So people are thanking God more and more. And that shows how great God is.

¹⁶ That is why we are not afraid to continue our work. Yes, our bodies are getting older and weaker. But our spirits are becoming stronger every day! ¹⁷ We have these little troubles that continue for a short time. But as a result, we will receive the great things that God has prepared for us. Those great things are much more important than our little troubles. And God's great things will continue for ever! ¹⁸ So we do not look at the things that we can see in this world. Instead, we look at the things that people cannot see. The things that we can see are only here for a short time. But the things that we cannot see will continue for ever.

18 The Lord gave this message to me: ² ‘You say this proverb about Israel: “The fathers have eaten bitter fruit, but it causes their children's teeth to hurt.” Why do you say that?^{[a] 3} Now I, the Lord God, tell you this: You will no longer say that proverb in Israel! ⁴ Everyone who lives belong to me. I have authority over the life of the father and over the life of the son. It is the people who do wrong things who will die because of their sins.

⁵ There may be a truly good man who does what is right and fair. ⁶ He does not go up the mountains and eat the food of idols. He does not pray to the idols that other Israelites worship. He does not have sex with another man's wife. He does not have sex with a woman when she is unclean. ⁷ He is not cruel to other people. When he lends money to someone, he gives back anything that he has taken as a guarantee. He does not take things that belong to other people. He gives food to hungry people. He gives clothes to poor people. ⁸ He does not lend money to someone and then ask to receive more money back. He refuses to do anything that is wrong. He helps people in a way that is right and fair. ⁹ He faithfully obeys my laws and my rules.

A man like that is righteous. He will continue to live. That is what the Almighty Lord says.

¹⁰ But that man may have a son who is cruel and violent. He may kill other people. He may do those bad things that his father never did. ¹¹ He may go up the mountains and eat the food of idols. He might have sex with another man's wife. ¹² He might be cruel to people who are poor and weak. He might take things that belong to other people. He might not give back things that he took as a guarantee. He prays to idols. He does disgusting things. ¹³ When he lends money to people, he wants them to pay back a lot more money to him.

A man like that will not continue to live! He will certainly die, because he himself has done all these disgusting things. He is guilty, so he himself must die as his punishment.

¹⁴ But this wicked man might have a son himself. The son sees all the sins that his father has done. He thinks about them. Then he decides that he will not live as his father has lived. ¹⁵ He does not go up the mountains to eat the food of idols. He does not pray to the idols that other Israelites worship. He does not have sex with another man's wife. ¹⁶ He is not cruel to anyone. He does not keep anything that he has taken from someone as a guarantee. He does not rob other people. But he gives food to hungry people. He gives clothes to poor people. ¹⁷ He refuses to do anything that is wrong. When he lends money to people, he does not take more back money back from them. He obeys my rules and my laws.

This man will certainly continue to live. He will not die because of his father's sins. ¹⁸ But his father will die as punishment for his own sins. He cheated people. He robbed people. He did evil things among his own people. So he will die because of his own sins.

¹⁹ You should not say, “Surely the son should receive punishment because of his father's sins.” If the son does what is good and right, and he obeys my laws and my rules, he will continue to live. ²⁰ It is the person who does wrong things who will die. A son will not receive punishment because of his father's sins. And a father will not receive punishment because of his son's sins. Righteous people will receive the good things that they deserve for the good things that they have done. But wicked people will receive the punishment that they deserve for the wicked things that they have done.

²¹ But a wicked person might turn away from the sins that he has been doing. He might decide to obey my laws and do things that are right and good. If he does that, he will certainly continue to live. He will not die as his punishment. ²² I would no longer say that he is guilty because of the sins that he has done. Instead, he will continue to live, because he has done things that are right. ²³ It does not make me happy when a wicked person dies. I want wicked people to stop doing wicked things. Then I am happy because they will continue to live. That is what the Almighty Lord says.

²⁴ A righteous person may stop doing things that are good and right. He may start to do the same disgusting things that wicked people do. Then he will not continue to live. I will not remember any of the good things that he did. Instead, I will punish him because of the sins that he has done. He has not been faithful to me, so he will die.

²⁵ But you say, “The Lord is not doing what is right!” So listen to me, Israel's people. It is you who are not doing what is right! It is not me! ²⁶ If a righteous person stops doing good things and he does bad things instead, he will die. Yes, he will die because of the wrong things that he has done. ²⁷ And if a wicked person stops doing wicked things and he does things that are right, he will continue to live. ²⁸ That wicked person realized that he was doing bad things. So he turned away from his sins. Because of that he will certainly continue to live. He will not die. ²⁹ But you, Israel's people, say, “The Lord is not doing what is right!” Do you really think that is true? No, you are the people who do not do what is right, you Israelites!

³⁰ The Almighty Lord says this to you, Israel's people: I will judge each of you as you deserve for the way that you live. So change how you live! Turn away from all the wicked things that you do. Then your sins will not finally destroy you. ³¹ Stop doing all the sins that you have been doing. Instead, think with new thoughts. Live with a new spirit inside you.^[b] You do not need to die, Israel's people! ³² It does not make me happy when anyone has to die. Turn away from your sins so that you continue to live! That is what the Almighty Lord says.’

This is a song that David wrote for the music leader, Jeduthun.

Only God can save me!

David wrote this psalm when he was in the Judah wilderness.

A morning song^[c]