2 Samuel 11:6–17

⁶At this, David sent orders to Joab: “Send me Uriah the Hittite.” So Joab sent him to David.

⁷When Uriah came to him, David asked how Joab and the troops were doing and how the war was going. ⁸Then he said to Uriah, “Go down to your house and wash your feet.”

So Uriah left the palace, and a gift from the king followed him. ⁹But Uriah slept at the door of the palace with all his master’s servants; he did not go down to his house.

¹⁰And David was told, “Uriah did not go home.”

“Haven’t you just arrived from a journey?” David asked Uriah. “Why didn’t you go home?”

¹¹Uriah answered, “The ark and Israel and Judah are dwelling in tents,^c and my master Joab and his soldiers are camped in the open field. How can I go to my house to eat and drink and sleep with my wife? As surely as you live, and as your soul lives, I will not do such a thing!”

¹²“Stay here one more day,” David said to Uriah, “and tomorrow I will send you back.” So Uriah stayed in Jerusalem that day and the next.

¹³Then David invited Uriah to eat and drink with him, and he got Uriah drunk. And in the evening Uriah went out to lie down on his cot with his master’s servants, but he did not go home.

¹⁴The next morning David wrote a letter to Joab and sent it with Uriah. ¹⁵In the letter he wrote: “Put Uriah at the front of the fiercest battle; then withdraw from him, so that he may be struck down and killed.”

¹⁶So as Joab besieged the city, he assigned Uriah to a place where he knew the strongest enemy soldiers were. ¹⁷And when the men of the city came out and fought against Joab, some of David’s servants fell, and Uriah the Hittite also died.