The king of a nation close by Israel who had been David’s friend, died.
His son was king in his place.
So David sent some men to the son to show kindness and comfort to the new king who had lost his father.
But the son did a bad thing. His helpers thought David sent the men to
spy on their country so they could take it for themselves.
They shaved the men’s beards in half and cut off their clothes in the middle so their legs and backsides were naked and sent
them away.
When David heard about it, he sent a message to his men saying, Stay in Jericho until your beards are grown.
Then the son of the king thought David was mad at him and was going to attack him, so he hired an army of 12,000 to march
out against David. So two armies were coming against Israel.
David sent his captain and army to the battle. They divided Israel into two armies and said, I’ll come help you if that army
is too strong for you. And you help me if this army is too strong for me.
Keep your heart strong for our people and for the cities of our God and let the Lord do what is good to
Him.
When the battle started, God’s people were stronger and so the armies ran away from God’s people.
Then they gathered many more soldiers with them come fight Israel.
The same thing happened again. All these armies ran from Israel and didn’t come to fight against Israel anymore.
After all this David did a really bad thing. When it was time to go to war, he sent his top general off with the army to
fight. But David stayed in the palace.
One day he got up from a nap and was walking on the garden of his palace. He looking down over the beautiful city that he
ruled for God.
While looking down from the roof of his palace he saw a beautiful woman taking a bath on her rooftop garden.
He sent men to see who she was and then brought her to him and made a baby with her though he knew that she belonged to
another man.
Then, when he found out she was going to have his baby, the king’s baby, and God’s rules said that anyone who took another
man’s wife was to be killed, David sent in a sneaky way and killed her husband.
What David did made God real mad. So God sent Nathan to tell David a story to show David what he had done.
The story was about a rich man who had many, many sheep and a poor man who had only one little lamb that was always with him
like a daughter.
A traveler came to the rich man and the rich man took the poor man’'s lamb to feed the traveler dinner instead of one of his
many lambs.
David said, Tell me who the rich man is that did this, He will die for this because he was so mean and he will give back
four lambs for the one he took.
Nathan said to David, You are the man. This is what the Lord God says, I made you king over Israel and saved you from
Saul.
I gave you all that was his and his wives for you to take care of. And I gave you the nation of Israel to rule and the house
of Judah.
If that hadn’t been enough, I would have given you anything you wanted. Why did you despise My commandment and do this bad
thing before My eyes?
You took another man’s wife and had her husband killed. You have given the bad one much bad to say about Me.
Because you have done this, bad things will always happen in your house, because you hated Me.
I will cause bad things to come from your own family. You were sneaky in what you did but I will do this to you where
everyone sees.
David said, I have sinned against the Lord.
Nathan told him God’s words, The Lord has put away your sin. You won’t die, But the baby that you have made with the other
man’s wife, I’ll take to be with Me.
It happened like God said, though David begged God for seven days to not take the baby.
Later, David had another baby with the other man’s wife who he had taken for himself.
God loved the baby and David named the child Solomon.