13. Then David called Uriah to come and see him. Uriah ate and drank with David. David got him drunk, but Uriah still did not go home. That evening, Uriah again slept at the palace with the rest of the king’s servants.
14. The next morning David wrote a letter to Joab and made Uriah carry the letter.
15. In the letter David wrote: “Put Uriah on the front lines where the fighting is the hardest. Then leave him there alone, and let him be killed in battle.”
16. Joab watched the city and saw where the bravest Ammonites were. He chose Uriah to go to that place.
17. The men of the city came out to fight against Joab. Some of David’s men were killed. Uriah the Hittite was one of them.
18. Then Joab sent a report to David about what happened in the battle.
19. Joab told the messenger to tell King David what had happened in the battle.
20. “The king might get upset and ask, ‘Why did Joab’s army go that close to the city to fight? Surely he knows that there are men on the city walls who can shoot arrows down at his men?
21. Surely he remembers that at Thebez a woman killed Abimelech son of Jerub Besheth when she threw the top part of a grinding stone down from the wall. So why did he go that close to the wall?’ If King David says something like that, tell him, ‘Your officer, Uriah the Hittite, also died.’”
22. The messenger went in and told David everything Joab told him to say.
23. The messenger told David, “The men of Ammon attacked us in the field. We fought them and chased them all the way to the city gate.
24. Then the men on the city wall shot arrows at your officers. Some of your officers were killed, including Uriah the Hittite.”