13. David summoned him, and he ate and drank with David, who got him drunk. But in the evening he went out to sleep on his bed among his lord’s servants, and did not go down to his house.
14. The next morning David wrote a letter to Joab which he sent by Uriah.
15. This is what he wrote in the letter: “Place Uriah up front, where the fighting is fierce. Then pull back and leave him to be struck down dead.”
16. So while Joab was besieging the city, he assigned Uriah to a place where he knew the defenders were strong.
17. When the men of the city made a sortie against Joab, some officers of David’s army fell, and Uriah the Hittite also died.
18. Then Joab sent David a report of all the details of the battle,
19. instructing the messenger, “When you have finished giving the king all the details of the battle,
20. the king may become angry and say to you: ‘Why did you go near the city to fight? Did you not know that they would shoot from the wall above?
21. Who killed Abimelech, son of Jerubbaal? Was it not a woman who threw a millstone down on him from the wall above, so that he died in Thebez? Why did you go near the wall?’ Then you in turn are to say, ‘Your servant Uriah the Hittite is also dead.’”
22. The messenger set out, and on his arrival he reported to David everything Joab had sent him to tell.
23. He told David: “The men had the advantage over us and came out into the open against us, but we pushed them back to the entrance of the city gate.