2 Samuel 11:4–15

⁴David sent messengers to fetch her; they brought her to him and he made love to her. (She had just finished her monthly ritual of purification.) Then she went back home. ⁵Afterwards she discovered that she was pregnant and sent a message to David to tell him.

⁶David then sent a message to Joab: “Send me Uriah the Hittite.” So Joab sent him to David. ⁷When Uriah arrived, David asked him if Joab and the troops were well, and how the fighting was going. ⁸Then he said to Uriah, “Go home and rest a while.” Uriah left, and David sent a present to his home. ⁹But Uriah did not go home; instead he slept at the palace gate with the king’s guards. ¹⁰When David heard that Uriah had not gone home, he asked him, “You have just returned after a long absence; why didn’t you go home?” ¹¹Uriah answered, “The men of Israel and Judah are away at the war, and the Covenant Box is with them; my commander Joab and his officers are camping out in the open. How could I go home, eat and drink, and sleep with my wife? By all that’s sacred, I swear that I could never do such a thing!”

¹²So David said, “Then stay here the rest of the day, and tomorrow I’ll send you back.” So Uriah stayed in Jerusalem that day and the next. ¹³David invited him to supper and made him drunk. But again that night Uriah did not go home; instead he slept on his blanket^x in the palace guardroom.

¹⁴The next morning David wrote a letter to Joab and sent it by Uriah. ¹⁵He wrote: “Put Uriah in the front line, where the fighting is heaviest, then retreat and let him be killed.”