He removed the people who were in the city and put them to work with saws, iron picks, and iron axes, and to labor at brickmaking. He did the same to all the Ammonite cities. Then he and all his troops returned to Jerusalem.

Joab replied to him, “You are not the man to take good news today. You may do it another day, but today you aren’t taking good news, because the king’s son is dead.”

And tell Amasa, ‘Aren’t you my flesh and blood? May God punish me and do so severely if you don’t become commander of the army from now on instead of Joab!’”

The men of Israel answered the men of Judah: “We have 10 shares in the king, so we have a greater claim to David than you. Why then do you despise us? Weren’t we the first to speak of restoring our king?” But the words of the men of Judah were harsher than those of the men of Israel.

The man who touches them
must be armed with iron and the shaft of a spear.
They will be completely burned up on the spot.

Then the angel extended his hand toward Jerusalem to destroy it, but the Lord relented concerning the destruction and said to the angel who was destroying the people, “Enough, withdraw your hand now!” The angel of the Lord was then at the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite.

Gad came to David that day and said to him, “Go up and set up an altar to the Lord on the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite.”

Araunah looked down and saw the king and his servants coming toward him, so he went out and bowed to the king with his face to the ground.

Araunah said, “Why has my lord the king come to his servant?”

David replied, “To buy the threshing floor from you in order to build an altar to the Lord, so the plague on the people may be halted.”

Araunah said to David, “My lord the king may take whatever he wants and offer it. Here are the oxen for a burnt offering and the threshing sledges and ox yokes for the wood.

My king, Araunah gives everything here to the king.” Then he said to the king, “May the Lord your God accept you.”

The king answered Araunah, “No, I insist on buying it from you for a price, for I will not offer to the Lord my God burnt offerings that cost me nothing.” David bought the threshing floor and the oxen for 20 ounces of silver.