God sent an angel to Jerusalem to destroy it; and as he was destroying it, the Lord looked, and relented concerning the catastrophe and said to the destroying angel, “It is enough; now remove your hand [of judgment].” And the angel of the Lord was standing by the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite.

Then the angel of the Lord commanded Gad to say to David, that David should go up and build an altar to the Lord on the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite.

Now Ornan was threshing wheat, and he turned back and saw the angel; and his four sons who were with him hid themselves.

As David came to Ornan, Ornan looked and saw him, and went out from the threshing floor and bowed down before David with his face to the ground.

Then David said to Ornan, “Give me the site of this threshing floor, so that I may build an altar on it to the Lord. You shall charge me the full price for it, so that the plague may be averted from the people.”

Ornan said to David, “Take it for yourself; and let my lord the king do what is good in his eyes. See, I will give you the oxen also for burnt offerings and the threshing sledges (heavy wooden platforms) for wood and the wheat for the grain offering; I give it all.”

But King David said to Ornan, “No, I will certainly pay the full price; for I will not take what is yours for the Lord, nor offer a burnt offering which costs me nothing.”

So David gave Ornan 600 shekels of gold by weight for the site.

At that time, when David saw that the Lord had answered him on the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite, he sacrificed there.

Then Solomon began to build the house of the Lord in Jerusalem on Mount Moriah, where the Lord appeared to his father David, in the place that David had prepared, on the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite.