4. “Then a traveler stopped to visit the rich man. The rich man wanted to give food to the traveler, but he did not want to take any of his own sheep or cattle to feed the traveler. No, the rich man took the lamb from the poor man and cooked it for his visitor.”
5. David became very angry with the rich man. He said to Nathan, “As the Lord lives, the man who did this should die!
6. He must pay four times the price of the lamb because he did this terrible thing and because he had no mercy.”
7. Then Nathan said to David, “You are that rich man! This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: ‘I chose you to be the king of Israel. I saved you from Saul.
8. I let you take his family and his wives, and I made you king of Israel and Judah. As if that had not been enough, I would have given you more and more.
9. So why did you ignore my command? Why did you do what I say is wrong? You let the Ammonites kill Uriah the Hittite, and you took his wife. It is as if you yourself killed Uriah in war.
10. So your family will never have peace! When you took Uriah’s wife, you showed that you did not respect me.’
11. “This is what the Lord says: ‘I am bringing trouble against you. This trouble will come from your own family. I will take your wives from you and give them to someone who is very close to you. He will have sexual relations with your wives, and everyone will know it!
12. You had sexual relations with Bathsheba in secret, but I will punish you so that all the people of Israel can see it.’”
13. Then David said to Nathan, “I have sinned against the Lord.” Nathan said to David, “The Lord will forgive you, even for this sin. You will not die.
14. But you did things that made the Lord’S enemies lose their respect for him, so your new baby son will die.”
15. Then Nathan went home. And the Lord caused the baby boy who was born to David and Uriah’s wife to become very sick.
16. David prayed to God for the baby. David refused to eat or drink. He went into his house and stayed there and lay on the ground all night.
17. The leaders of David’s family came and tried to pull David up from the ground, but he refused to get up. He refused to eat with these leaders.
18. On the seventh day the baby died. David’s servants were afraid to tell him that the baby was dead. They said, “Look, we tried to talk to David while the baby was alive, but he refused to listen to us. If we tell David that the baby is dead, he might do something bad to himself.”