19. and he instructed the messenger, “After you have told the king all about the battle,
20. 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?
21. 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.’ ”
22. So the messenger went to David and told him what Joab had commanded him to say.
23. He said, “Our enemies were stronger than we were and came out of the city to fight us in the open, but we drove them back to the city gate.
24. Then they shot arrows at us from the wall, and some of Your Majesty's officers were killed; your officer Uriah was also killed.”
25. David said to the messenger, “Encourage Joab and tell him not to be upset, since you never can tell who will die in battle. Tell him to launch a stronger attack on the city and capture it.”
26. When Bathsheba heard that her husband had been killed, she mourned for him.