2 Samuel 11:4–15

⁴So David sent messengers, and took her; and she came to him, and he lay with her. (Now she was purifying herself from her uncleanness.) Then she returned to her house. ⁵And the woman conceived; and she sent and told David, “I am with child.”

⁶So David sent word to Joab, “Send me Uriah the Hittite.” And Joab sent Uriah to David. ⁷When Uriah came to him, David asked how Joab was doing, and how the people fared, and how the war prospered. ⁸Then David said to Uriah, “Go down to your house, and wash your feet.” And Uriah went out of the king’s house, and there followed him a present from the king. ⁹But Uriah slept at the door of the king’s house with all the servants of his lord, and did not go down to his house. ¹⁰When they told David, “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?” ¹¹Uriah said to David, “The ark and Israel and Judah dwell in booths; and my lord Joab and the servants of my lord are camping in the open field; shall I then go to my house, to eat and to drink, and to lie with my wife? As you live, and as your soul lives, I will not do this thing.” ¹²Then David said to Uriah, “Remain here today also, and tomorrow I will let you depart.” So Uriah remained in Jerusalem that day, and the next. ¹³And David invited him, and he ate in his presence and drank, so that he made him drunk; and in the evening he went out to lie on his couch with the servants of his lord, but he did not go down to his house.

¹⁴In the morning David wrote a letter to Joab, and sent it by the hand of Uriah. ¹⁵In the letter he wrote, “Set Uriah in the forefront of the hardest fighting, and then draw back from him, that he may be struck down, and die.”