One evening David got up from bed and walked out on the balcony of his house. From there he could see down into the courtyards of some of the surrounding houses. He observed a woman bathing and the woman was very beautiful. David asked his servants about the woman. One said, I believe this is Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite.

Then David sent messengers, and brought her to him in the palace. She came in to him, and he lay with her - she would not have dared to object, the king could have had her killed. When she returned to her house, she realized she had conceived, and sent and told David, "I am pregnant."

David sent a message to Joab at the battlefield, saying, "Send me Uriah the Hittite."

And Joab sent Uriah to David. When Uriah came to him, David questioned him about how Joab and the army were doing, and how the war was prospering. Then David said to Uriah, Go to your house, and enjoy yourself until I send you back. David wanted Uriah to lay with his wife so he would think the child was his. But Uriah didn't go home. Instead he slept at the barracks at the front of David's house where all the servants slept. When the servants told David that Uriah didn't go to his house, David said to Uriah, "You have returned after a long journey, why didn't you go stay the night at your own home?"

Uriah replied to David, "The ark and the armies of Israel and Judah are in tents. My commander Joab and the officers of my lord the king are encamped in the open fields; shall I then go to my house and eat and drink, and lie with my wife? As you live, I will not do this thing."

And David said to Uriah, "Stay here today, and tomorrow I will send you back."

So Uriah stayed in Jerusalem that day, and the next. That night David called him to dine with him and he made him drunk, but that night he went out to sleep in the barracks with the servants again; he didn't go to his house.

In the morning David wrote a letter to Joab, and gave it to Uriah to deliver. In the letter he wrote, "Put Uriah in the hottest part of the battle and then pull back from him so that he will be killed."

When Joab determined how the battles around the city were going, he assigned Uriah to a place where he knew that the strongest enemy fighters were. Those soldiers went out and fought with Joab's and some of David's soldiers were killed and Uriah the Hittite died among them. Then Joab sent a messenger to tell David all the progress of the war and he told the messenger, "When you have finished your report to the king, if he gets angry and he says to you, 'Why did you approach so close to the city when you fought? Didn't you know that they would shoot from the wall? Remember who killed Abimelech the son of Jerubbesheth? It was a woman who cast a piece of a millstone upon him from the wall! Why did you go so close to the wall?' then say, 'Your servant Uriah the Hittite was killed as well.'"

So the messenger went, and reported to David all that Joab had sent him for. And the messenger said to David, "Surely the enemy attacked us, and came out to us into the field, and we chased them back even to the gate. The archers shot from the wall at your soldiers; and some of the king's servants were killed, and your servant Uriah the Hittite is dead also."

Then David said to the messenger, "Tell Joab not to be too upset, for the sword devours one as well as another. Encourage him to make your battle stronger against the city, and overthrow it."

When Bathsheba heard that her husband was dead, she mourned for him. When the time of mourning had past, David sent and fetched her to his house, and she became his wife, and bore him a son.

But the thing that David had done displeased the Lord! The Lord sent Nathan the prophet to David. Nathan told David a story, "There were two men, one rich, and the other poor. The rich man had vast flocks and herds but the poor man had only one little ewe lamb which he had bought up and nourished. It grew up with him and with his children. It ate of his own food, and drank water from his own cup and lay in his bosom, and was to him almost as a daughter.

"A traveler came to the rich man. But the rich man did not take of his own flock and of his own herd to butcher and cook for the wayfaring man, but took instead the poor man's lamb, and killed and cooked it for the man who had come to him."

David was furious at the man and he said to Nathan, "As the Lord lives, the man that did that shall surely die, and he shall restore the lamb fourfold, because he did this thing, and because he had no pity."

And Nathan said to David, "You are that man. The Lord God of Israel says, 'I anointed you king over Israel, and I delivered you out of the hand of Saul. I gave you your master's house, and your master's wives. I gave you the nations of Israel and Judah, and if that had been too little, I would have given you whatever else you desired. Why have you despised the commandment of the Lord, to do evil in His sight? You have killed Uriah the Hittite with the sword and have taken his wife to be your wife. Because you have done this, the sword shall never depart from your house; because you have despised Me, and have taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your wife.'

"The Lord says, 'I will raise up evil against you out of your own house and I will take your wives before your eyes, and give them to your neighbor, and he will lie with your wives in the sight of this sun. For you did it secretly, but I will do this thing before all Israel, and in broad daylight.'"

And David was exceedingly repentant and said to Nathan, "I have sinned against the Lord." In this repentant attitude David wrote the 51st Psalm.

And Nathan replied, "The Lord has put away your sin; you will not die. However, by doing this you have given great occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme. The child that is born to you will surely die." And Nathan departed to his own house.

And the Lord made the baby that Bathsheba bore very sick. So David prayed to God for the baby and David fasted and lay all night in the dirt. And the elders of his house went to him to raise him up from the dirt, but he would not, nor would he eat with them. On the seventh day the child died and David's servants were afraid to tell him. They said, "Look, while the baby was yet alive, we spoke to him, and he would not listen us, perhaps he may harm himself if we tell him that the child is dead."

But when David saw that his servants were whispering, he realized that the baby was dead, so he asked his servants, "Is the baby dead?"

And they admitted, "He is dead."

Then David got up from the dirt, and bathed, and anointed himself, and changed his clothes, and came into the house of the Lord, and worshipped. Then he went to his own house and he commanded food so they set food before him, and he ate. Then his servants asked him, "Why have you done this? You fasted and wept for the baby while he was alive, but now he's dead you rise and eat."

David told them, "While the baby was alive, I fasted and wept, for I said, 'Who can tell, perhaps God will be gracious to me and allow the baby to live.' But now he is dead, why should I fast? Can I bring him back again? I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me."

And David comforted Bathsheba his wife, and lay with her, and she bore another son, and he called him Solomon, which means peace, and the Lord loved the child Solomon. God sent a message by Nathan the prophet that Solomon should also be called Jedidiah, which means beloved of God.

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