So they went up to Baal-perazim, and David overcame them there, and David said, God has let the forces fighting against me be broken by my hand, as a wall is broken down by rushing water; so they gave that place the name of Baal-perazim.

And the Philistines did not take their images with them in their flight; and at David's orders they were burned with fire.

And David went for directions to God; and God said to him, You are not to go up after them; but, turning away from them, come face to face with them opposite the spice-trees.

And David did as the Lord had said; and they overcame the army of the Philistines, attacking them from Gibeon as far as Gezer.

And David's name was honoured in all lands; and the Lord put the fear of him on all nations.

And David made houses for himself in the town of David; and he got ready a place for the ark of God, and put up a tent for it.

Then David said, The ark of God may not be moved by any but the Levites, for they have been marked out by God to take the ark of God, and to do his work for ever.

And David made all Israel come together at Jerusalem, to take the ark of the Lord to its place, which he had got ready for it.

And David got together the sons of Aaron, and the Levites;

And David sent for Zadok and Abiathar the priests, and for the Levites, Uriel, Asaiah and Joel, Shemaiah and Eliel and Amminadab,

And David gave orders to the chief of the Levites to put their brothers the music-makers in position, with instruments of music, corded instruments and brass, with glad voices making sounds of joy.

So David, and the responsible men of Israel, and the captains over thousands, went with joy to get the ark of the agreement of the Lord out of the house of Obed-edom.

And David was clothed with a robe of fair linen, as were all the Levites who took up the ark, and those who made melody, and Chenaniah the master of those who made melody; and David had on a linen ephod;

And when the ark of the agreement of the Lord came into the town of David, Michal, the daughter of Saul, looking out of the window, saw King David dancing and playing; and to her mind he seemed foolish.

Then they took in the ark of God and put it inside the tent which David had put up for it; and they made offerings, burned offerings and peace-offerings before God.

And when David had come to an end of making the burned offerings and peace-offerings, he gave the people a blessing in the name of the Lord.

Then on that day David first made the giving of praise to the Lord the work of Asaph and his brothers.

And all the people went away, every man to his house; and David went back to give a blessing to his family.

Now when David was living in his house, he said to Nathan the prophet, See, I am living in a house of cedar-wood, but the ark of the Lord's agreement is under the curtains of a tent.

And Nathan said to David, Do whatever is in your heart, for God is with you.

Go and say to David my servant, The Lord says, You are not to make me a house for my living-place:

So now, say to my servant David, The Lord of armies says, I took you from the fields, from keeping sheep, so that you might be a ruler over my people Israel;

So Nathan gave David an account of all these words and this vision.

Then David the king went in and took his seat before the Lord, and said, Who am I, O Lord God, and what is my family, that you have been my guide till now?

What more may David say to you? for you have knowledge of your servant.

So let your words be made certain and your name be made great, when men say, The Lord of armies is the God of Israel; and when the family of David your servant is made strong before you.

And it came about after this that David made an attack on the Philistines and overcame them, and took Gath with its daughter-towns out of the hands of the Philistines.

Then David overcame Hadadezer, king of Zobah, near Hamath, when he was going to make his power seen by the river Euphrates.

And David took from him a thousand war-carriages and seven thousand horsemen and twenty thousand footmen: and he had the leg-muscles of all the horses cut, keeping only enough of them for a hundred war-carriages.

And when the Aramaeans of Damascus came to the help of Hadadezer, king of Zobah, David put to the sword twenty-two thousand Aramaeans.

Then David put armed forces in Damascus, and the Aramaeans became his servants and gave him offerings. And the Lord made David overcome wherever he went.

And the gold body-covers of the servants of Hadadezer, David took to Jerusalem.

And from Tibhath and from Cun, towns of Hadadezer, David took a great store of brass, of which Solomon made the great brass water-vessel and the brass pillars and vessels.

Now when Tou, king of Hamath, had news that David had overcome all the army of Hadadezer, king of Zobah,

He sent his son Hadoram to King David, to give him words of peace and blessing, because he had overcome Hadadezer in the fight, for Hadadezer had been at war with Tou; and he gave him all sorts of vessels of gold and silver and brass.

These King David made holy to the Lord, together with the silver and gold he had taken from all nations; from Edom and Moab and from the children of Ammon and from the Philistines and from Amalek.

David put armed forces in all the towns of Edom; and all the Edomites became servants to David. The Lord made David overcome wherever he went.

So David was king over all Israel, judging and giving right decisions for all his people.

And Benaiah, the son of Jehoiada, was over the Cherethites and the Pelethites; and the sons of David were chief of those whose places were at the king's side.

And David said, I will be a friend to Hanun, the son of Nahash, because his father was a friend to me. So David sent men to him, to give him words of comfort on account of his father. And the servants of David came to Hanun, to the land of the children of Ammon, offering him comfort.

But the chiefs of the children of Ammon said to Hanun, Does it seem to you that David is honouring your father, by sending comforters to you? is it not clear that these men have only come to go through the land and to make secret observation of it so that they may overcome it?

So Hanun took David's servants, and cutting off their hair and the skirts of their robes up to the middle, sent them away.

Then certain men went and gave David word of what had been done to them. And he sent out with the purpose of meeting them; for the men were greatly shamed. And the king said, Keep where you are at Jericho till your hair is long again, and then come back.

And when the children of Ammon saw that they had made themselves hated by David, Hanun and the children of Ammon sent a thousand talents of silver as payment for war-carriages and horsemen from Mesopotamia and Aram-maacah and Zobah.

And David, hearing of it, sent Joab with all the army of fighting-men.

And word of this was given to David; and he got all Israel together and went over Jordan and came to Helam and put his forces in position against them. And when David's forces were in position against the Aramaeans, the fight was started.

And the Aramaeans went in flight before Israel; and David put to the sword the men of seven thousand Aramaean war-carriages and forty thousand footmen, and put to death Shophach, the captain of the army.

And when the servants of Hadadezer saw that they were overcome by Israel, they made peace with David and became his servants: and the Aramaeans would give no more help to the children of Ammon.

Now in the spring, at the time when kings go out to war, Joab went out at the head of the armed forces and made waste all the land of the Ammonites and put his men in position before Rabbah, shutting it in. But David was still at Jerusalem. And Joab took Rabbah and made it waste.

And David took the crown of Milcom from off his head; its weight was a talent of gold and it had stones of great price in it; and it was put on David's head, and he took a great store of goods from the town.

And he took the people out of the town and put them to work with wood-cutting instruments, and iron grain-crushers, and axes. And this he did to all the towns of the children of Ammon. Then David and all the people went back to Jerusalem.

And when he put shame on Israel, Jonathan, the son of Shimea, David's brother, put him to death.

These were of the offspring of the Rephaim in Gath; they came to their death by the hands of David and his servants.

Now Satan, designing evil against Israel, put into David's mind the impulse to take the number of Israel.

And David said to Joab and the captains of the people, Now let all Israel, from Beer-sheba to Dan, be numbered; and give me word so that I may be certain of their number.

And Joab gave David the number of all the people; all the men of Israel, able to take up arms, were one million, one hundred thousand men; and those of Judah were four hundred and seventy thousand men, able to take up arms.

Then David said to God, Great has been my sin in doing this; but now, be pleased to take away the sin of your servant, for I have done very foolishly.

Then the word of the Lord came to Gad, David's seer, saying,

Go and say to David, The Lord says, Three things are offered to you: say which of them you will have, so that I may do it to you.

So Gad came to David and said to him, The Lord says, Take whichever you will:

And David said to Gad, This is a hard decision for me to make: let me come into the hands of the Lord, for great are his mercies: let me not come into the hands of men.

And David, lifting up his eyes, saw the angel of the Lord there between earth and heaven, with an uncovered sword in his hand stretched out over Jerusalem. Then David and the responsible men, clothed in haircloth, went down on their faces.

And David said to God, Was it not I who gave the order for the people to be numbered? It is I who have done the sin and the great wrong; but these are only sheep; what have they done? let your hand, O Lord God, be lifted up against me and against my family, but not against your people to send disease on them.

Then the angel of the Lord gave orders to Gad to say to David that he was to go and put up an altar to the Lord on the grain-floor of Ornan the Jebusite.

And David went up, as Gad had said in the name of the Lord.

And when David came, Ornan, looking, saw him, and came out from the grain-floor and went down on his face to the earth before him.

Then David said to Ornan, Give me the place where this grain-floor is, so that I may put up an altar here to the Lord: let me have it for its full price; so that this disease may be stopped among the people.

And Ornan said to David, Take it, and let my lord the king do what seems right to him. See, I give you the oxen for burned offerings and the grain-cleaning instruments for fire-wood, and the grain for the meal offering; I give it all.

And King David said to Ornan, No; I will certainly give you the full price for it, because I will not take for the Lord what is yours, or give a burned offering without payment.

So David gave Ornan six hundred shekels of gold by weight for the place.

And David put up an altar there to the Lord, offering burned offerings and peace-offerings with prayers to the Lord; and he gave him an answer from heaven, sending fire on the altar of burned offering.

At that time, when David saw that the Lord had given him an answer on the grain-floor of Ornan the Jebusite, he made an offering there.

But David was not able to go before it to get directions from the Lord, so great was his fear of the sword of the angel of the Lord.

Then David said, This is the house of the Lord God, and this is the altar for Israel's burned offerings.

And David gave orders to get together all the men from strange lands who were in the land of Israel; and he put stone-cutters to work, cutting stones for building the house of God.

And cedar-trees without number, for the Zidonians and the men of Tyre came with a great amount of cedar-trees for David.

And David said, Solomon my son is young and untested, and the house which is to be put up for the Lord is to be very great, a thing of wonder and glory through all countries; so I will make ready what is needed for it. So David got ready a great store of material before his death.

And David said to Solomon, My son, it was my desire to put up a house for the name of the Lord my God.

Then David gave orders to all the chiefs of Israel to give their help to Solomon his son, saying,

Now David was old and full of days; and he made his son Solomon king over Israel.

Four thousand were door-keepers; and four thousand gave praise to the Lord with the instruments which I made, said David, for giving praise.

And David put them into divisions under the names of the sons of Levi: Gershon, Kohath, and Merari.

For David said, The Lord, the God of Israel, has given his people rest, and he has made his resting-place in Jerusalem for ever;

So among the last acts of David was the numbering of the sons of Levi, from twenty years old and over.

And David, with Zadok of the sons of Eleazar, and Ahimelech of the sons of Ithamar, made distribution of them into their positions for their work.

Selection was made of these in the same way as of their brothers the sons of Aaron, David the king being present, with Zadok, and Ahimelech, and the heads of families of the priests and of the Levites; the families of the chief in the same way as those of his younger brother.

Further, David and the chiefs of the servants of the holy place made selection of certain of the sons of Asaph and of Heman and of Jeduthun for the work of prophets, to make melody with corded instruments and brass; and the number of the men for the work they had to do was:

Shelomoth and his brothers were responsible for all the store of holy things which David the king and the heads of families, the captains of thousands and of hundreds, and the captains of the army, had given to the Lord.

Of the Hebronites, Jerijah was the chief of all the Hebronites, in their generations by families. In the fortieth year of the rule of David a search was made, and able men were seen among them at Jazer of Gilead.

And his brothers were two thousand, seven hundred able men, heads of families, whom King David made overseers over the Reubenites and the Gadites and the half-tribe of Manasseh, in everything to do with God, and for the king's business.

Of Judah, Elihu, one of the brothers of David; of Issachar, Omri, the son of Michael;

But David did not take the number of those who were under twenty years old, for the Lord had said that he would make Israel like the stars of heaven in number.

The numbering was started by Joab, the son of Zeruiah, but he did not go on to the end; and because of it, wrath came on Israel and the number was not recorded in the history of King David.

The flocks were in the care of Jaziz the Hagarite. All these were the controllers of King David's property.

Now Jonathan, David's father's brother, expert in discussion, and a man of good sense, was a scribe; and Jehiel the son of Hachmoni, had the care of the king's sons;

And David got together at Jerusalem all the rulers of Israel, the chiefs of the tribes and the captains of the divisions waiting on the king in turn, and the captains of thousands and the captains of hundreds and the controllers of all the goods and property of the king and his sons, with the unsexed servants and the great men of war.

Then David the king got up and said, Give ear to me, my brothers and my people; it was my desire to put up a house, a resting-place for the ark of the Lord's agreement, and for the foot-rest of our God; and I had got material ready for the building of it.

Then David gave to his son Solomon the design of the doorway of the house of God and of its houses and its store-houses, and the higher rooms and the inner rooms and the place for the mercy-seat;

All this, said David, the design for all these things, has been made dear to me in writing by the hand of the Lord.

And David said to his son Solomon, Be strong and of a good heart and do your work; have no fear and do not be troubled, for the Lord God, my God, is with you; he will not give you up, and his face will not be turned away from you, till all the work necessary for the house of the Lord is complete.