since I have set an evil example before the people of God by my sin, I am ready to suffer punishment according to the Lord’s will as a warning to the people not to fall into such transgression.” But when Truth and Justice saw David’s penitence, they permitted Mercy to pass the judgment; for the prophet Nathan replied in this wise: “God sees your repentance, and He does not desire you to suffer death for your sin, but He will punish you with an endurable chastisement for this deed before you die.” Now you must know that God did not forgive David’s crime so completely as to excuse him from just punishment; for this was the first penalty that the king suffered from God: the child which he had begotten with Bathsheba was a man child and very lovely, wherefore David much desired that it might live; but it did not please God to let him enjoy the child which he had begotten in such a sinful way. Nevertheless, David lay seven days upon the earth in the raiment of mourning, fasting and imploring God to let the child live. But God would not hear his prayer, and the child expired on the seventh day.[318] And this was the second punishment, that God refused to let David build him a temple;[319] God even called him a murderer, because he had deprived Uriah of life. But for the adultery which he had committed with Uriah’s wife, he had to suffer this disgrace, that his son Absalom, in the sight of all the people, went in unto David’s concubines and thus dishonored his father before all the people.[320] Footnote 318: The story of David’s great sin concerning Bathsheba and Uriah and its consequences is told in _II Samuel_, xi-xii, but it is probable that the author’s source is some Biblical paraphrase rather than the Vulgate itself. Footnote 319: _I Chronicles_, xxii, 8. Footnote 320: _II Samuel_, xvi, 21-22.