2 Samuel 10–12

War with the Ammonites and Arameans

10When Nahash king of the Ammonites died, his son Hanun became king after him. ²David said, “Nahash was loyal to me, so I will be loyal to his son Hanun.” So David sent his messengers to comfort Hanun about his father’s death.

David’s officers went to the land of the Ammonites. ³But the Ammonite leaders said to Hanun, their master, “Do you think David wants to honor your father by sending men to comfort you? No! David sent them to study the city and spy it out and capture it!” ⁴So Hanun arrested David’s officers. To shame them he shaved off half their beards and cut off their clothes at the hips. Then he sent them away.

⁵When the people told David, he sent messengers to meet his officers because they were very ashamed. King David said, “Stay in Jericho until your beards have grown back. Then come home.”

⁶The Ammonites knew that they had insulted David. So they hired twenty thousand Aramean foot soldiers from Beth Rehob and Zobah. They also hired the king of Maacah with a thousand men and twelve thousand men from Tob.

⁷When David heard about this, he sent Joab with the whole army. ⁸The Ammonites came out and prepared for battle at the city gate. The Arameans from Zobah and Rehob and the men from Tob and Maacah were out in the field by themselves.

⁹Joab saw that there were enemies both in front of him and behind him. So he chose some of the best soldiers of Israel and sent them out to fight the Arameans. ¹⁰Joab put the rest of the army under the command of Abishai, his brother. Then he sent them out to fight the Ammonites. ¹¹Joab said to Abishai, “If the Arameans are too strong for me, you must help me. Or, if the Ammonites are too strong for you, I will help you. ¹²Be strong. We must fight bravely for our people and the cities of our God. The Lord will do what he thinks is right.”

¹³Then Joab and the army with him went to attack the Arameans, and the Arameans ran away. ¹⁴When the Ammonites saw that the Arameans were running away, they also ran away from Abishai and went back to their city. So Joab returned from the battle with the Ammonites and came to Jerusalem.

¹⁵When the Arameans saw that Israel had defeated them, they came together into one big army. ¹⁶Hadadezer sent messengers to bring the Arameans from east of the Euphrates River, and they went to Helam. Their leader was Shobach, the commander of Hadadezer’s army.

¹⁷When David heard about this, he gathered all the Israelites together. They crossed over the Jordan River and went to Helam. There the Arameans prepared for battle and attacked him. ¹⁸But the Arameans ran away from the Israelites. David killed seven hundred Aramean chariot drivers and forty thousand Aramean horsemen. He also killed Shobach, the commander of the Aramean army.

¹⁹When the kings who served Hadadezer saw that the Israelites had defeated them, they made peace with the Israelites and served them. And the Arameans were afraid to help the Ammonites again.

David Sins with Bathsheba

11In the spring, when the kings normally went out to war, David sent out Joab, his servants, and all the Israelites. They destroyed the Ammonites and attacked the city of Rabbah. But David stayed in Jerusalem. ²One evening David got up from his bed and walked around on the roof ⁿ of his palace. While he was on the roof, he saw a woman bathing. She was very beautiful. ³So David sent his servants to find out who she was. A servant answered, “That woman is Bathsheba daughter of Eliam. She is the wife of Uriah the Hittite.” ⁴So David sent messengers to bring Bathsheba to him. When she came to him, he had sexual relations with her. (Now Bathsheba had purified herself from her monthly period.) Then she went back to her house. ⁵But Bathsheba became pregnant and sent word to David, saying, “I am pregnant.”

⁶So David sent a message to Joab: “Send Uriah the Hittite to me.” And Joab sent Uriah to David. ⁷When Uriah came to him, David asked him how Joab was, how the soldiers were, and how the war was going. ⁸Then David said to Uriah, “Go home and rest.”

So Uriah left the palace, and the king sent a gift to him. ⁹But Uriah did not go home. Instead, he slept outside the door of the palace as all the king’s officers did.

¹⁰The officers told David, “Uriah did not go home.”

Then David said to Uriah, “You came from a long trip. Why didn’t you go home?”

¹¹Uriah said to him, “The Ark and the soldiers of Israel and Judah are staying in tents. My master Joab and his officers are camping out in the fields. It isn’t right for me to go home to eat and drink and have sexual relations with my wife!”

¹²David said to Uriah, “Stay here today. Tomorrow I’ll send you back to the battle.” So Uriah stayed in Jerusalem that day and the next. ¹³Then David called Uriah to come to see him, so Uriah ate and drank with David. David made Uriah drunk, but he still did not go home. That evening Uriah again slept with the king’s officers.

¹⁴The next morning David wrote a letter to Joab and sent it by Uriah. ¹⁵In the letter David wrote, “Put Uriah on the front lines where the fighting is worst and leave him there alone. Let him be killed in battle.”

¹⁶Joab watched the city and saw where its strongest defenders were and put Uriah there. ¹⁷When the men of the city came out to fight against Joab, some of David’s men were killed. And Uriah the Hittite was one of them.

¹⁸Then Joab sent David a complete account of the war. ¹⁹Joab told the messenger, “Tell King David what happened in the war. ²⁰After you finish, the king may be angry and ask, ‘Why did you go so near the city to fight? Didn’t you know they would shoot arrows from the city wall? ²¹Do you remember who killed Abimelech son of Jerub-Besheth? ⁿ It was a woman on the city wall. She threw a large stone for grinding grain on Abimelech and killed him there in Thebez. Why did you go so near the wall?’ If King David asks that, tell him, ‘Your servant Uriah the Hittite also died.’ ”

²²The messenger left and went to David and told him everything Joab had told him to say. ²³The messenger told David, “The men of Ammon were winning. They came out and attacked us in the field, but we fought them back to the city gate. ²⁴The archers on the city wall shot at your servants, and some of your men were killed. Your servant Uriah the Hittite also died.”

²⁵David said to the messenger, “Say this to Joab: ‘Don’t be upset about this. The sword kills everyone the same. Make a stronger attack against the city and capture it.’ Encourage Joab with these words.”

²⁶When Bathsheba heard that her husband was dead, she cried for him. ²⁷After she finished her time of sadness, David sent servants to bring her to his house. She became David’s wife and gave birth to his son, but the Lord did not like what David had done.

David’s Son Dies

12The Lord sent Nathan to David. When he came to David, he said, “There were two men in a city. One was rich, but the other was poor. ²The rich man had many sheep and cattle. ³But the poor man had nothing except one little female lamb he had bought. The poor man fed the lamb, and it grew up with him and his children. It shared his food and drank from his cup and slept in his arms. The lamb was like a daughter to him.

⁴“Then a traveler stopped to visit the rich man. The rich man wanted to feed the traveler, but he didn’t want to take one of his own sheep or cattle. Instead, he took the lamb from the poor man and cooked it for his visitor.”

⁵David became very angry at the rich man. He said to Nathan, “As surely as the Lord lives, the man who did this should die! ⁶He must pay for the lamb four times for doing such a thing. He had no mercy!”

⁷Then Nathan said to David, “You are the man! This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: ‘I appointed you king of Israel and saved you from Saul. ⁸I gave you his kingdom and his wives. And I made you king of Israel and Judah. And if that had not been enough, I would have given you even more. ⁹So why did you ignore the Lord’s command? Why did you do what he says is wrong? You killed Uriah the Hittite with the sword of the Ammonites and took his wife to be your wife! ¹⁰Now there will always be people in your family who will die by a sword, because you did not respect me; you took the wife of Uriah the Hittite for yourself!’

¹¹“This is what the Lord says: ‘I am bringing trouble to you from your own family. While you watch, I will take your wives from you and give them to someone who is very close to you. He will have sexual relations with your wives, and everyone will know it. ¹²You had sexual relations with Bathsheba in secret, but I will do this so all the people of Israel can see it.’ ”

¹³Then David said to Nathan, “I have sinned against the Lord.”

Nathan answered, “The Lord has taken away your sin. You will not die. ¹⁴But what you did caused the Lord’s enemies to lose all respect for him. For this reason the son who was born to you will die.”

¹⁵Then Nathan went home. And the Lord caused the son of David and Bathsheba, Uriah’s widow, to be very sick. ¹⁶David prayed to God for the baby. David fasted and went into his house and stayed there, lying on the ground all night. ¹⁷The elders of David’s family came to him and tried to pull him up from the ground, but he refused to get up or to eat food with them.

¹⁸On the seventh day the baby died. David’s servants were afraid to tell him that the baby was dead. They said, “Look, we tried to talk to David while the baby was alive, but he refused to listen to us. If we tell him the baby is dead, he may do something awful.”

¹⁹When David saw his servants whispering, he knew that the baby was dead. So he asked them, “Is the baby dead?”

They answered, “Yes, he is dead.”

²⁰Then David got up from the floor, washed himself, put lotions on, and changed his clothes. Then he went into the Lord’s house to worship. After that, he went home and asked for something to eat. His servants gave him some food, and he ate.

²¹David’s servants said to him, “Why are you doing this?…