2 Samuel 11:4–15

⁴Then David sent messengers to get her.^t She came to him, and he slept^u with her. (Now she was purifying herself from her monthly uncleanness.)^v Then she went back home. ⁵The woman conceived and sent word to David, saying, “I am pregnant.”

⁶So David sent this word to Joab: “Send me Uriah^w the Hittite.” And Joab sent him 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 down to your house and wash your feet.”^x So Uriah left the palace, and a gift from the king was sent after him. ⁹But Uriah slept at the entrance to the palace with all his master’s servants and did not go down to his house.

¹⁰David was told, “Uriah did not go home.” So he asked Uriah, “Haven’t you just come from a military campaign? Why didn’t you go home?”

¹¹Uriah said to David, “The ark^y and Israel and Judah are staying in tents,^a and my commander Joab and my lord’s men are camped in the open country. How could I go to my house to eat and drink and make love^z to my wife? As surely as you live, I will not do such a thing!”

¹²Then David said to him, “Stay here one more day, and tomorrow I will send you back.” So Uriah remained in Jerusalem that day and the next. ¹³At David’s invitation, he ate and drank with him, and David made him drunk. But in the evening Uriah went out to sleep on his mat among his master’s servants; he did not go home.

¹⁴In the morning David wrote a letter^a to Joab and sent it with Uriah. ¹⁵In it he wrote, “Put Uriah out in front where the fighting is fiercest. Then withdraw from him so he will be struck down^b and die.^c”