16 David asked the Lord to make his child well again. He lay on the floor of his house all night and he ate no food. 17 His palace officers stood around him. They tried to help him to get up from the ground. But he refused and he would not eat anything with them.
18 On the seventh day, the child died. David's officers were afraid to tell him. They thought, ‘Even when the child was alive, David refused to listen to us. So what will happen if we tell him that the child is dead? He might try to hurt himself.’
19 But David saw that his officers were speaking secretly to each other. So he realized that the child had died. He asked them, ‘Is the child dead?’
They replied, ‘Yes, he is dead.’
20 Then David got up from the ground and he washed himself. He put special oil on his body and he dressed himself in clean clothes. Then he went into the Lord's house to worship him. After that, he went back to his palace. He asked his servants to bring some food and he ate it.
21 His officers said to him, ‘We do not understand what you are doing. While the child was still alive, you refused to eat food and you wept. But now that the child is dead you are no longer weeping. You are moving around and you are eating. Why?’
22 David replied, ‘While the child was still alive, I wept and I did not eat anything. I thought that perhaps the Lord would be kind to me. I thought that he might let the child live. 23 But now the child is dead. Even if I fast and I pray, I cannot bring him back to me. One day, I will go to the place where he is. But he will never come back here to me.’
24 Then David went to comfort his wife, Bathsheba. He had sex with her as his wife. Later, she gave birth to a son. David gave him the name ‘Solomon’. The Lord loved the child, 25 so he sent a message to David with Nathan, the prophet. He told David to call his son Jedidiah, because the Lord loved him.
12:25Jedidiah means ‘The Lord loves him’.
