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Then Joab sent and told David all the things concerning the war,
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and charged the messenger, saying, "When you have finished telling the matters of the war to the king,
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if it happens that the king's wrath rises, and he says to you: 'Why did you approach so near to the city when you fought? Did you not know that they would shoot from the wall?
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Who struck Abimelech the son of Jerubbesheth? Was it not a woman who cast a piece of a millstone on him from the wall, so that he died in Thebez? Why did you go near the wall?'--then you shall say, 'Your servant Uriah the Hittite is dead also.' "
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So the messenger went, and came and told David all that Joab had sent by him.
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And the messenger said to David, "Surely the men prevailed against us and came out to us in the field; then we drove them back as far as the entrance of the gate.
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The archers shot from the wall at your servants; and some of the king's servants are dead, and your servant Uriah the Hittite is dead also."
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Then David said to the messenger, "Thus you shall say to Joab: 'Do not let this thing displease you, for the sword devours one as well as another. Strengthen your attack against the city, and overthrow it.' So encourage him."
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When the wife of Uriah heard that Uriah her husband was dead, she mourned for her husband.
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And when her mourning was over, David sent and brought her to his house, and she became his wife and bore him a son. But the thing that David had done displeased the Lord.