10. When it was reported to David, “Uriah didn’t go home,” David questioned Uriah, “Haven’t you just come from a journey? Why didn’t you go home? ”
11. Uriah answered David, “The ark, Israel, and Judah are dwelling in tents, and my master Joab and his soldiers are camping in the open field. How can I enter my house to eat and drink and sleep with my wife? As surely as you live and by your life, I will not do this! ”
12. “Stay here today also,” David said to Uriah, “and tomorrow I will send you back.” So Uriah stayed in Jerusalem that day and the next.
13. Then David invited Uriah to eat and drink with him, and David got him drunk. He went out in the evening to lie down on his cot with his master’s servants, but he did not go home.
14. The next morning David wrote a letter to Joab and sent it with Uriah.
15. In the letter he wrote:Put Uriah at the front of the fiercest fighting, then withdraw from him so that he is struck down and dies.
16. When Joab was besieging the city, he put Uriah in the place where he knew the best enemy soldiers were.
17. Then the men of the city came out and attacked Joab, and some of the men from David’s soldiers fell in battle; Uriah the Hittite also died.
18. Joab sent someone to report to David all the details of the battle.
19. He commanded the messenger, “When you’ve finished telling the king all the details of the battle —
20. if the king’s anger gets stirred up and he asks you, ‘Why did you get so close to the city to fight? Didn’t you realize they would shoot from the top of the wall?
21. At Thebez, who struck Abimelech son of Jerubbesheth? Didn’t a woman drop an upper millstone on him from the top of the wall so that he died? Why did you get so close to the wall? ’ — then say, ‘Your servant Uriah the Hittite is dead also.’ ”
22. Then the messenger left.When he arrived, he reported to David all that Joab had sent him to tell.