2 Samuel 12:9 (DRB)

Passage

Why therefore hast thou despised the word of the Lord, to do evil in my sight? Thou hast killed Urias the Hethite with the sword, and hast taken his wife to be thy wife, and hast slain him with the sword of the children of Ammon.

Nearby Context

2 Samuel 12:7 And Nathan said to David: Thou art the man. Thus saith the Lord the God of Israel: I anointed thee king over Israel, and I delivered thee from the hand of Saul,

2 Samuel 12:8 And gave thee thy master's house and thy master's wives into thy bosom, and gave thee the house of Israel and Juda: and if these things be little, I shall add far greater things unto thee.

2 Samuel 12:9 Why therefore hast thou despised the word of the Lord, to do evil in my sight? Thou hast killed Urias the Hethite with the sword, and hast taken his wife to be thy wife, and hast slain him with the sword of the children of Ammon.

2 Samuel 12:10 Therefore the sword shall never depart from thy house, because thou hast despised me, and hast taken the wife of Urias the Hethite to be thy wife.

2 Samuel 12:11 Thus saith the Lord: Behold, I will raise up evil against thee out of thy own house, and I will take thy wives before thy eyes and give them to thy neighbour, and he shall lie with thy wives in the sight of this sun.

Study Lenses

The verse centers on "therefore", "hast", "thou", "despised", "word", "lord", "evil", and "sight". It is saying that the verse draws attention to "therefore" and "hast", so its meaning should be read from those terms before moving to application.

The nearby context moves from verse 8's "And gave thee thy master's house and..." into verse 10's "Therefore the sword shall never depart from...", so "therefore" and "hast" belong inside that flow. In 2 Samuel context, the local focus is covenant, worship, and faithfulness.

A plain takeaway is to answer the verse's own emphasis on "therefore" and "hast" with trust shaped by these words, not by a vague optimism outside the passage.