Fluent Translation · Read & Reflect
2 Samuel 11
David Remains in Jerusalem
At the turning of the year, at the time when kings go out to battle, David sent Joab and his servants with him and all Israel. They devastated the children of Ammon and besieged Rabbah. But David remained in Jerusalem.
David Takes Bathsheba
It happened toward evening that David arose from his bed and walked on the roof of the king’s house. From the roof he saw a woman bathing, and the woman was very beautiful in appearance. David sent and inquired about the woman. Someone said, “Is this not Bathsheba daughter of Eliam, wife of Uriah the Hittite?” David sent messengers and took her. She came to him, and he lay with her. Now she had been purifying herself from her uncleanness. Then she returned to her house. The woman conceived, and she sent and told David and said, “I am pregnant.”
David Summons Uriah
Then David sent to Joab, saying, “Send me Uriah the Hittite.” So Joab sent Uriah to David. Uriah came to him, and David asked concerning Joab’s well-being, the well-being of the people, and the well-being of the war. David said to Uriah, “Go down to your house and wash your feet.” Uriah went out from the king’s house, and a gift from the king went out after him. Yet Uriah slept at the entrance of the king’s house with all the servants of his lord and did not go down to his house. They told David, saying, “Uriah did not go down to his house.” David said to Uriah, “Have you not come from a journey? Why did you not go down to your house?” Uriah said to David, “The ark and Israel and Judah are living in booths, and my lord Joab and the servants of my lord are camped on the open field. Will I then go to my house to eat and drink and lie with my wife? As you live and as your life lives, I will not do this thing.” David said to Uriah, “Remain here today also, and tomorrow I will send you away.” So Uriah remained in Jerusalem that day and the next. David called him, and he ate before him and drank, and David made him drunk. In the evening he went out to lie on his bed with the servants of his lord, but he did not go down to his house.
David Arranges Uriah’s Death
In the morning David wrote a letter to Joab and sent it by the hand of Uriah. He wrote in the letter, saying, “Set Uriah at the front of the fiercest battle, then withdraw from behind him, so that he may be struck and die.” So when Joab was watching the city, he assigned Uriah to the place where he knew there were mighty men. The men of the city came out and fought with Joab, and some of the people from David’s servants fell. Uriah the Hittite also died.
Joab Sends the Battle Report
Then Joab sent and told David all the matters of the war. He commanded the messenger, saying, “When you finish speaking to the king all the matters of the war, if the king’s anger rises and he says to you, ‘Why did you go so near the city to fight? Did you not know they would shoot from the wall? Who struck Abimelech son of Jerubbesheth? Did not a woman throw an upper millstone upon him from the wall so that he died at Thebez? Why did you go so near the wall?’ Then you will say, ‘Your servant Uriah the Hittite is also dead.’” The messenger went and came and told David all that Joab had sent him to tell. The messenger said to David, “The men prevailed over us and came out against us into the field, but we pushed them back as far as the entrance of the gate. Then the archers shot at your servants from the wall, and some of the king’s servants died. Your servant Uriah the Hittite also died.” David said to the messenger, “Thus you will say to Joab: ‘Do not let this matter be evil in your eyes, for the sword devours one as well as another. Strengthen your battle against the city and overthrow it.’ And encourage him.”
David Takes Bathsheba as Wife
When the wife of Uriah heard that Uriah her husband was dead, she lamented over her husband.
When the mourning was past, David sent and gathered her into his house, and she became his wife and bore him a son.
But the thing that David had done was evil in the eyes of the LORD.