the Lord, and trained choirs of singers for the
service. He also kept his heart open toward the Lord, so that he was
able to write some wonderful poems that were set to music and sung by
the temple choirs. We call them the Psalms of David.

Though David had grown rich and great, he did not forget his promise to
Jonathan. He called Ziba, who had been Saul's servant and said to him,

"Is there not yet any of the house of Saul that I may show the kindness
of God to him?"

Then Ziba told him of a man who was lame in both his feet, who was the
son of Jonathan. David sent for him, and gave him all the land of
Saul, and a place was made for him at the king's table among his own
sons, and it was his while he lived.

CHAPTER XXIV.

DAVID'S SIN.

The army of Israel was at war with the Ammonites, and Joab was the
chief captain. David did not go out with the army, but stayed in his
house in Jerusalem. One evening he was walking on the flat roof of his
house, as the people of that country always do, and he saw a little way
off a very beautiful woman. He sent a servant to ask who she was, and
found she was the wife of Uriah who was in the army with Joab, fighting
the Ammonites. Then a great temptation was set before David, and
instead of going to the Lord to be saved from it, he sent to Joab,
asking him to send him Uriah, the Hittite. So Uriah came, and David
talked kindly with him, and found him a good and faithful man. When he
went back to Joab he took a letter from David, who asked that he be set
in the front of the battle. So Joab placed him there, and when the two
armies met Uriah was killed, and Joab sent a messenger to tell David.
After her mourning was ended, Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah, became the
wife of David, but the Lord was displeased with David. He also knew
David's heart and how to deal with him, so he sent Nathan the prophet
to him.

"There were two men in one city," said Nathan, "one of them rich and
the other poor. The rich man had many flocks and herds, but the poor
man had nothing, save one little ewe lamb, which he had bought and
nourished up; and it grew together with him and with his children: it
did eat of his own meat and drink of his own cup, and lay in his bosom
and was unto him as a daughter. And there came a traveller unto the
rich man, and he spared to take of his own flock to dress for the
wayfaring man that was come to him, but took the poor man's lamb and
dressed it for