2 Samuel 12

¹And the Lord sent Nathan to David. And Nathan came to him and said, There were two men in the same town: one a man of great wealth, and the other a poor man.

²The man of wealth had great numbers of flocks and herds;

³But the poor man had only one little she-lamb, which he had got and taken care of: from its birth it had been with him like one of his children; his meat was its food, and from his cup it took its drink, resting in his arms, and it was like a daughter to him.

⁴Now a traveller came to the house of the man of wealth, but he would not take anything from his flock or his herd to make a meal for the traveller who had come to him, but he took the poor man's lamb and made it ready for the man who had come.

⁵And David was full of wrath against that man; and he said to Nathan, By the living Lord, death is the right punishment for the man who has done this:

⁶And he will have to give back four times the value of the lamb, because he has done this and because he had no pity.

⁷And Nathan said to David, You are that man. The Lord God of Israel says, I made you king over Israel, putting holy oil on you, and I kept you safe from the hands of Saul;

⁸I gave you your master's daughter and your master's wives for yourself, and I gave you the daughters of Israel and Judah; and if that had not been enough, I would have given you such and such things.

⁹Why then have you had no respect for the word of the Lord, doing what is evil in his eyes? You have put Uriah the Hittite to death with the sword, and have taken his wife to be your wife; you have put him to death with the sword of the children of Ammon.