| [an error occurred while processing this directive] | New International Version |
| 1[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 1In the spring, at the time when kings go off to war, David sent Joab out with the king's men and the whole Israelite army. They destroyed the Ammonites and besieged Rabbah. But David remained in Jerusalem. |
| 2[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 2One evening David got up from his bed and walked around on the roof of the palace. From the roof he saw a woman bathing. The woman was very beautiful, |
| 3[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 3and David sent someone to find out about her. The man said, "She is Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam and the wife of Uriah the Hittite." |
| 4[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 4Then David sent messengers to get her. She came to him, and he slept with her. (Now she was purifying herself from her monthly uncleanness.) Then she went back home. |
| 5[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 5The woman conceived and sent word to David, saying, "I am pregnant." |
| 6[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 6So David sent this word to Joab: "Send me Uriah the Hittite." And Joab sent him to David. |
| 7[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 7When Uriah came to him, David asked him how Joab was, how the soldiers were and how the war was going. |
| 8[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 8Then David said to Uriah, "Go down to your house and wash your feet." So Uriah left the palace, and a gift from the king was sent after him. |
| 9[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 9But Uriah slept at the entrance to the palace with all his master's servants and did not go down to his house. |
| 10[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 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?" |
| 11[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 11Uriah said to David, "The ark and Israel and Judah are staying in tents, 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 to my wife? As surely as you live, I will not do such a thing!" |
| 12[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 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. |
| 13[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 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. |
| 14[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 14In the morning David wrote a letter to Joab and sent it with Uriah. |
| 15[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 15In it he wrote, "Put Uriah out in front where the fighting is fiercest. Then withdraw from him so he will be struck down and die." |
| 16[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 16So while Joab had the city under siege, he put Uriah at a place where he knew the strongest defenders were. |
| 17[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 17When the men of the city came out and fought against Joab, some of the men in David's army fell; moreover, Uriah the Hittite died. |
| 18[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 18Joab sent David a full account of the battle. |
| 19[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 19He instructed the messenger: "When you have finished giving the king this account of the battle, |
| 20[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 20the king's anger may flare up, and he may ask you, 'Why did you get so close to the city to fight? Didn't you know they would shoot arrows from the wall? |
| 21[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 21Who killed Abimelek son of Jerub-Besheth? Didn't a woman drop an upper millstone on him from the wall, so that he died in Thebez? Why did you get so close to the wall?' If he asks you this, then say to him, 'Moreover, your servant Uriah the Hittite is dead.'" |
| 22[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 22The messenger set out, and when he arrived he told David everything Joab had sent him to say. |
| 23[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 23The messenger said to David, "The men overpowered us and came out against us in the open, but we drove them back to the entrance of the city gate. |
| 24[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 24Then the archers shot arrows at your servants from the wall, and some of the king's men died. Moreover, your servant Uriah the Hittite is dead." |
| 25[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 25David told the messenger, "Say this to Joab: 'Don't let this upset you; the sword devours one as well as another. Press the attack against the city and destroy it.' Say this to encourage Joab." |
| 26[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 26When Uriah's wife heard that her husband was dead, she mourned for him. |
| 27[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 27After the time of mourning was over, David had her brought to his house, and she became his wife and bore him a son. But the thing David had done displeased the LORD. |
| [an error occurred while processing this directive] | New International Version (NIV) Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. |
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