2 Samuel 24:10-17 - The Lord's Judgment Of David's Sin

¹⁰ David's heart struck him after that he had numbered the people. David said to Yahweh, "I have sinned greatly in that which I have done. But now, Yahweh, put away, I beg you, the iniquity of your servant; for I have done very foolishly."

¹¹ When David rose up in the morning, the word of Yahweh came to the prophet Gad, David's seer, saying, ¹² "Go and speak to David, 'Thus says Yahweh, "I offer you three things. Choose one of them, that I may do it to you."'"

¹³ So Gad came to David, and told him, and said to him, "Shall seven years of famine come to you in your land? Or will you flee three months before your foes while they pursue you? Or shall there be three days' pestilence in your land? Now answer, and consider what answer I shall return to him who sent me."

¹⁴ David said to Gad, "I am in distress. Let us fall now into the hand of Yahweh; for his mercies are great. Let me not fall into the hand of man."

¹⁵ So Yahweh sent a pestilence on Israel from the morning even to the appointed time; and there died of the people from Dan even to Beersheba seventy thousand men. ¹⁶ When the angel stretched out his hand toward Jerusalem to destroy it, Yahweh relented of the disaster, and said to the angel who destroyed the people, "It is enough. Now stay your hand." The angel of Yahweh was by the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite.

¹⁷ David spoke to Yahweh when he saw the angel who struck the people, and said, "Behold, I have sinned, and I have done perversely; but these sheep, what have they done? Please let your hand be against me, and against my father's house."