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? 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 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!"