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So while Joab was besieging the city, he sent Uriah to a place where he knew the enemy was strong.

The enemy troops came out of the city and fought Joab's forces; some of David's officers were killed, and so was Uriah.

he may get angry and ask you, ‘Why did you go so near the city to fight them? Didn't you realize that they would shoot arrows from the walls?

Don't you remember how Abimelech son of Gideon was killed? It was at Thebez, where a woman threw a millstone down from the wall and killed him. Why, then, did you go so near the wall?' If the king asks you this, tell him, ‘Your officer Uriah was also killed.'"

So the messenger went to David and told him what Joab had commanded him to say.

When David noticed them whispering to each other, he realized that the child had died. So he asked them, "Is the child dead?" "Yes, he is," they answered.

So David gathered his forces, went to Rabbah, attacked it, and conquered it.

He was so much in love with her that he became sick, because it seemed impossible for him to have her; as a virgin, she was kept from meeting men.

So Amnon pretended that he was sick and went to bed. King David went to see him, and Amnon said to him, "Please let Tamar come and make a few cakes here where I can see her, and then serve them to me herself."

So David sent word to Tamar in the palace: "Go to Amnon's house and fix him some food."

When her brother Absalom saw her, he asked, "Has Amnon molested you? Please, sister, don't let it upset you so much. He is your half brother, so don't tell anyone about it." So Tamar lived in Absalom's house, sad and lonely.

And Absalom hated Amnon so much for having raped his sister Tamar that he would no longer even speak to him.

So the servants followed Absalom's instructions and killed Amnon. All the rest of David's sons mounted their mules and fled.

So don't believe the news that all your sons are dead; only Amnon was killed."

so he sent for a clever woman who lived in Tekoa. When she arrived, he said to her, "Pretend that you are in mourning; put on your mourning clothes, and don't comb your hair. Act like a woman who has been in mourning for a long time.

And now, sir, all my relatives have turned against me and are demanding that I hand my son over to them, so that they can kill him for murdering his brother. If they do this, I will be left without a son. They will destroy my last hope and leave my husband without a son to keep his name alive."

She said, "Your Majesty, please pray to the Lord your God, so that my relative who is responsible for avenging the death of my son will not commit a greater crime by killing my other son." "I promise by the living Lord ," David replied, "that your son will not be harmed in the least."

She said to him, "Why have you done such a wrong to God's people? You have not allowed your own son to return from exile, and so you have condemned yourself by what you have just said.

Now, Your Majesty, the reason I have come to speak to you is that the people threatened me, and so I said to myself that I would speak to you in the hope that you would do what I ask.

I thought you would listen to me and save me from the one who is trying to kill my son and me and so remove us from the land God gave his people.