2 Samuel 10-12

Common English Bible

War with the Ammonites and Arameans

10 Some time later, the king of the Ammonites died, and his son Hanun succeeded him as king. ² David said, “I’ll be loyal to Nahash’s son Hanun, just as his father was loyal to me.” So David sent his servants with condolences concerning Hanun’s father.

But when David’s servants arrived in Ammonite territory, ³ the Ammonite officials asked their master Hanun, “Do you really believe David is honoring your father because he has sent you condolences? Of course not! David has sent his servants to you to search the city, spy it out, and overthrow it.” ⁴ So Hanun seized David’s servants and shaved off their beards,^[a] cut off half their garments, from their buttocks down, and sent them off.

⁵ When this was reported to David, he sent men to meet them because they were completely ashamed. The king said, “Stay in Jericho until your beards have grown. Then you can come back.”

⁶ When the Ammonites realized that they had offended David, they sent for and hired the Arameans of Beth-rehob and the Arameans of Zobah, totaling twenty thousand foot soldiers; the king of Maacah with one thousand soldiers; and twelve thousand soldiers from Tob. ⁷ When David heard this, he sent Joab with the entire army of warriors. ⁸ The Ammonites marched out and formed a battle line at the entrance to the city. The Arameans of Zobah and Rehob and the soldiers from Tob and Maacah remained in the countryside.

⁹ When Joab saw that the battle would be fought on two fronts, he chose some of Israel’s finest warriors and deployed them to meet the Arameans. ¹⁰ The rest of the army Joab placed under the command of his brother Abishai. When they took up their positions to meet the Ammonites, Joab said, ¹¹ “If the Arameans prove too strong for me, you must help me, and if the Ammonites prove too strong for you, I’ll help you. ¹² Be brave! We must be courageous for the sake of our people and the cities of our God. The Lord will do what is good in his eyes.”

¹³ When Joab and the troops who were with him advanced into battle against the Arameans, they fled from him. ¹⁴ When the Ammonites saw that the Arameans had fled, they also fled from Abishai and retreated to the city. Then Joab returned from fighting the Ammonites and went to Jerusalem.

¹⁵ The Arameans saw that they had been defeated by Israel, so they regrouped. ¹⁶ Hadadezer sent for Arameans from beyond the Euphrates River. They came to Helam with Shobach leading them as commander of Hadadezer’s army. ¹⁷ When this was reported to David he gathered all Israel, crossed the Jordan, and went to Helam. The Arameans formed battle lines against David and fought with him. ¹⁸ But the Arameans fled before Israel, and David destroyed seven hundred of their chariots and forty thousand horsemen. David wounded their army commander Shobach, and he died there. ¹⁹ When all the kings who served Hadadezer saw that they were defeated by Israel, they made peace with Israel and became their subjects. Never again would the Arameans come to the aid of the Ammonites.

David and Bathsheba

11 In the spring,^[b] when kings^[c] go off to war, David sent Joab, along with his servants and all the Israelites, and they destroyed the Ammonites, attacking the city of Rabbah. But David remained in Jerusalem.

² One evening, David got up from his couch and was pacing back and forth on the roof of the palace. From the roof he saw a woman bathing; the woman was very beautiful. ³ David sent someone and inquired about the woman. The report came back: “Isn’t this Eliam’s daughter Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah the Hittite?” ⁴ So David sent messengers to take her. When she came to him, he had sex with her. (Now she had been purifying herself after her monthly period.) Then she returned home. ⁵ The woman conceived and sent word to David.

“I’m pregnant,” she said.

⁶ Then David sent a message to Joab: “Send me Uriah the Hittite.” So Joab sent Uriah to David. ⁷ When Uriah came to him, David asked about the welfare of Joab and the army and how the battle was going. ⁸ Then David told Uriah, “Go down to your house and wash your feet.”

Uriah left the palace, and a gift from the king was sent after him. ⁹ However, Uriah slept at the palace entrance with all his master’s servants. He didn’t go down to his own house. ¹⁰ David was told, “Uriah didn’t go down to his own house,” so David asked Uriah, “Haven’t you just returned from a journey? Why didn’t you go home?”

¹¹ “The chest and Israel and Judah are all living in tents,” Uriah told David. “And my master Joab and my master’s troops are camping in the open field. How^[d] could I go home and eat, drink, and have sex with my wife? I swear on your very life,^[e] I will not do that!”

¹² Then David told Uriah, “Stay here one more day. Tomorrow I’ll send you back.” So Uriah stayed in Jerusalem that day. The next day ¹³ David called for him, and he ate and drank, and David got him drunk. In the evening Uriah went out to sleep in the same place, alongside his master’s servants, but he did not go down to his own home.

¹⁴ The next morning David wrote a letter to Joab and sent it with Uriah. ¹⁵ He wrote in the letter, “Place Uriah at the front of the fiercest battle, and then pull back from him so that he will be struck down and die.”

¹⁶ So as Joab was attacking the city, he put Uriah in the place where he knew there were strong warriors. ¹⁷ When the city’s soldiers came out and attacked Joab, some of the people from David’s army fell. Uriah the Hittite was also killed. ¹⁸ Joab sent a complete report of the battle to David.

¹⁹ “When you have finished reporting all the news of the battle to the king,” Joab instructed the messenger, ²⁰ “if the king gets angry and asks you, ‘Why did you go so close to the city to fight? didn’t you know they would shoot from the wall? ²¹ Who killed Jerubbaal’s son Abimelech?^[f] didn’t a woman throw an upper millstone on top of him from the wall so that he died in Thebez? Why did you go so close to the wall?’ then say: ‘Your servant Uriah the Hittite is dead too.’”

²² So the messenger set off, and when he arrived he reported to David everything Joab sent him to say.

²³ “The men overpowered us,” the messenger told David. “They came out against us in the open field, but we fought against them^[g] up to the entrance of the city gate. ²⁴ Archers shot down on your servants from the wall. Some of the king’s servants died. And your servant Uriah the Hittite is dead too.”

²⁵ David said to the messenger, “Say this to Joab: ‘Don’t be upset about this because the sword is that way: taking the life of this person or that person. Continue attacking the city and destroy it!’ Encourage Joab!”

²⁶ When Uriah’s wife heard that her husband Uriah was dead, she mourned for her husband. ²⁷ After the time of mourning was over, David sent for her and brought her back to his house. She became his wife and bore him a son.

But what David had done was evil in the Lord’s eyes.

Nathan pronounces God’s judgment

12 So the Lord sent Nathan to David. When Nathan arrived he said, “There were two men in the same city, one rich, one poor. ² The rich man had a lot of sheep and cattle, ³ but the poor man had nothing—just one small ewe lamb that he had bought. He raised that lamb, and it grew up with him and his children. It would eat from his food and drink from his cup—even sleep in his arms! It was like a daughter to him.

⁴ “Now a traveler came to visit the rich man, but he wasn’t willing to take anything from his own flock or herd to prepare for the guest who had arrived. Instead, he took the poor man’s ewe lamb and prepared it for the visitor.”

⁵ David got very angry at the man, and he said to Nathan, “As surely as the Lord lives, the one who did this is demonic!^{[h] 6} He must restore the ewe lamb seven times over^[i] because he did this and because he had no compassion.”

⁷ “You are that man!” Nathan told David. “This is what the Lord God of Israel says: I anointed you king over Israel and delivered you from Saul’s power. ⁸ I gave your master’s house^[j] to you, and gave his wives into your embrace. I gave you the house^[k] of Israel and Judah. If that was too little, I would have given even more. ⁹ Why have you despised the Lord’s word by doing what is evil in his eyes? You have struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword and taken his wife as your own. You used the Ammonites to kill him. ¹⁰ Because of that, because you despised me and took the wife of Uriah the Hittite as your own, the sword will never leave your own house.

¹¹ “This is what the Lord says: I am making trouble come against you from inside your own family. Before your very eyes I will take your wives away and give them to your friend, and he will have sex with your wives in broad daylight. ¹² You did what you did secretly, but I will do what I am doing before all Israel in the light of day.”

¹³ “I’ve sinned against the Lord!” David said to Nathan.

“The Lord has removed your sin,” Nathan replied to David. “You won’t die. ¹⁴ However, because you have utterly disrespected the Lord^[l] by doing this, the son born to you will definitely die.” ¹⁵ Then Nathan went home.

Bathsheba’s child dies

The Lord struck the child that Uriah’s wife had borne for David, and he became very sick. ¹⁶ David begged God for the boy. He fasted and spent the night sleeping on the ground. ¹⁷ The senior servants of his house approached^[m] him to lift him up off the ground, but he refused, and he wouldn’t eat with them either.

¹⁸ On the seventh day, the child died. David’s servants were afraid to tell him that the child had died. “David wouldn’t listen to us when we talked to him while the child was still alive,” they said. “How can we tell him the child has died? He’ll do something terrible!”

¹⁹ But when David saw his servants whispering, he realized the child had died.

“Is the child dead?” David asked his servants.

“Yes,” they said, “he is dead.”

²⁰ Then David rose from the ground, bathed, anointed himself, and changed his clothes. He entered the Lord’s house and bowed down. Then he entered his own house. He requested food, which was brought to him, and he ate.

²¹ “Why are you acting this way?” his servants asked. “When the child was alive, you fasted and cried and kept watch,^[n] but now that the child is dead, you get up and eat food!”

²² David replied, “While the child was alive I fasted and wept because I thought, Who knows? The Lord may have mercy on me and let the child live. ²³ But he is dead now. Why should I fast? Can I bring him back again? No. I am going where he is, but he won’t come back to me.”

²⁴ Then David comforted his wife Bathsheba. He went to her and had sex with her. She gave birth to a son and named him Solomon.^[o] The Lord loved him ²⁵ and sent word by the prophet Nathan to name him Jedidiah^[p] because of the Lord’s grace.^[q]

Defeat of the Ammonites

²⁶ Meanwhile, Joab fought the Ammonites at Rabbah and captured the royal city. ²⁷ Joab then sent messengers to David, saying, “I have fought against Rabbah and captured the city’s water supply.^{[r] 28} So gather the rest of the troops, attack the city, and capture it. Otherwise, I will capture the city myself, and it will be named after me.”

²⁹ So David gathered all the troops, marched to Rabbah, fought against it, and captured it. ³⁰ David took Milcom’s^[s] crown off his head. It weighed one kikkar of gold and was set with a valuable stone. It was placed on David’s head. The amount of loot David took from the city was huge. ³¹ He brought out the people who were in the city and put them to work making bricks. David demolished the city with saws, iron picks, and axes;^[t] he did this to all the Ammonite cities. Then David and all the troops returned to Jerusalem.