1 And Satan stood up against Israel, and moved David to number Israel.
2 And David said to Joab and to the princes of the people, Go, number Israel from Beersheba even to Dan, and bring me word that I may know the sum of them.
3 And Joab said, LORD make his people a hundred times as many as they are. But, my lord the king, are they not all my lord's servants? Why does my lord require this thing? Why will he be a cause of guilt to Israel?
4 Nevertheless the king's word prevailed against Joab. Therefore Joab departed, and went throughout all Israel, and came to Jerusalem.
5 And Joab gave up the sum of the numbering of the people to David. And all those of Israel were a million and a hundred thousand men who drew a sword. And Judah was four hundred seventy thousand men who drew a sword.
6 But he did not count Levi and Benjamin among them, for the king's word was abominable to Joab.
7 And God was displeased with this thing, therefore he smote Israel.
8 And David said to God, I have sinned greatly, in that I have done this thing. But now, put away, I beseech thee, the iniquity of thy servant, for I have done very foolishly.
9 And LORD spoke to Gad, David's seer, saying,
10 Go and speak to David, saying, Thus says LORD, I offer thee three things. Choose thee one of them, that I may do it to thee.
11 So Gad came to David, and said to him, Thus says LORD, Take which thou will:
12 either three years of famine, or three months to be consumed before thy foes while the sword of thine enemies overtakes thee, or else three days the sword of LORD, even pestilence in the land, and the agent of LORD destroying throu
13 And David said to Gad, I am in a great strait. Let me fall, I pray, into the hand of LORD, for his mercies are very great, and let me not fall into the hand of man.
14 So LORD sent a pestilence upon Israel, and there fell of Israel seventy thousand men.
15 And God sent an agent to Jerusalem to destroy it. And as he was about to destroy, LORD beheld, and he relented of the evil, and said to the destroying agent, It is enough. Now halt thy hand. And the agent of LORD was standing by th
16 And David lifted up his eyes, and saw the agent of LORD standing between earth and heaven, having a drawn sword in his hand stretched out over Jerusalem. Then David and the elders, clothed in sackcloth, fell upon their faces.
17 And David said to God, Is it not I who commanded the people to be numbered? Even I it is who have sinned and done very badly. But these sheep, what have they done? Let thy hand, I pray thee, O LORD my God, be against me, and agains
18 Then the agent of LORD commanded Gad to say to David that David should go up, and rear an altar to LORD in the threshing-floor of Ornan the Jebusite.
19 And David went up at the saying of Gad, which he spoke in the name of LORD.
20 And Ornan turned back, and saw the [heavenly] agent, and his four sons who were with him hid themselves. Now Ornan was threshing wheat.
21 And as David came to Ornan, Ornan looked and saw David, and went out of the threshing-floor, and bowed himself to David with his face to the ground.
22 Then David said to Ornan, Give me the place of this threshing-floor, that I may build thereon an altar to LORD. For the full price thou shall give it me, that the plague may be stopped from the people.
23 And Ornan said to David, Take it to thee, and let my lord the king do that which is good in his eyes. Lo, I give [thee] the oxen for burnt-offerings, and the threshing instruments for wood, and the wheat for the meal-offering. I gi
24 And king David said to Ornan, No, but I will truly buy it for the full price. For I will not take that which is thine for LORD, nor offer a burnt-offering without cost.
25 So David gave to Ornan for the place six hundred shekels of gold by weight.
26 And David built there an altar to LORD, and offered burnt-offerings and peace-offerings, and called upon LORD. And he answered him from heaven by fire upon the altar of burnt-offering.
27 And LORD commanded the agent, and he put up his sword again into the sheath of it.
28 At that time, when David saw that LORD had answered him in the threshing-floor of Ornan the Jebusite, then he sacrificed there.
29 For the tabernacle of LORD, which Moses made in the wilderness, and the altar of burnt-offering, were at that time in the high place at Gibeon.
30 But David could not go before it to inquire of God, for he was afraid because of the sword of the agent of LORD.