2 Samuel 11:16-27 ▼

16 And it comes to pass in Joab’s watching of the city, that he appoints Uriah to the place where he knew that valiant men [were];

17 and the men of the city go out and fight with Joab, and [some] of the people, from the servants of David, fall; and Uriah the Hittite also dies.

18 And Joab sends and declares to David all the matters of the war,

19 and commands the messenger, saying, “At your finishing all the matters of the war to speak to the king,

20 then, it has been, if the king’s fury ascends, and he has said to you, Why did you draw near to the city to fight? Did you not know that they shoot from off the wall?

21 Who struck Abimelech son of Jerubbesheth? Did a woman not cast a piece of a rider from the wall on him, and he dies in Thebez? Why did you draw near to the wall? That you have said, Also—your servant Uriah the Hittite is dead.”

22 And the messenger goes, and comes in, and declares to David all that with which Joab sent him,

23 and the messenger says to David, “Surely the men have been mighty against us, and come out to us into the field, and we are on them to the opening of the gate,

24 and those shooting shoot at your servants from off the wall, and [some] of the servants of the king are dead, and also, your servant Uriah the Hittite is dead.”

25 And David says to the messenger, “Thus you say to Joab, Do not let this thing be evil in your eyes; for thus and thus the sword devours; strengthen your warfare against the city, and throw it down; so you strengthen him.”

26 And the wife of Uriah hears that her husband Uriah [is] dead, and laments for her lord;

27 and the mourning passes by, and David sends and gathers her to his house, and she is to him for a wife, and bears a son to him; and the thing which David has done is evil in the eyes of YHWH.