1 Chronicles 21

¹And Satan stood against Israel and incited David to count Israel.

²And David said to Joab and to the commanders of the people: Go, count Israel from Beersheba to Dan, and bring it to me, that I may know their number.

³And Joab said, 'May the LORD add to his people a hundredfold as they are! Are they not, my lord the king, all of them servants to my lord? Why does my lord seek this? Why should it become a cause of guilt for Israel?'

⁴But the word of the king prevailed over Joab; so Joab went out and traveled throughout all Israel and came to Jerusalem.

⁵And Joab gave David the count of the mustering of the people. And all Israel was a thousand thousands and a hundred thousand men who drew the sword, and Judah was four hundred and seventy thousand men who drew the sword.

⁶But Levi and Benjamin he did not number among them, for the king's command was detestable to Joab.

⁷And it was evil in the eyes of God concerning this thing, and he struck Israel.

⁸And David said to God, I have sinned greatly in that I have done this thing; and now, please take away the iniquity of your servant, for I have acted very foolishly.

⁹And the LORD spoke to Gad, David's seer, saying,

¹⁰Go and speak to David, saying: Thus says the LORD: Three things I am stretching out before you; choose one of them for yourself, and I will do it to you.

¹¹And Gad came to David and said to him, 'Thus says the LORD: Choose for yourself

¹²Either three years of famine, or three months of being swept away before your foes while the sword of your enemy overtakes, or three days: the sword of the LORD and pestilence in the land, and the angel of the LORD destroying throughout all the border of Israel. Now see what word I am to bring back to the one who sent me.

¹³And David said to Gad, I am in very great distress; let me fall, please, into the hand of the LORD, for his mercies are very great; but into the hand of man let me not fall.

¹⁴And the LORD sent a pestilence upon Israel, and there fell from Israel seventy thousand men.

¹⁵And God sent an angel to Jerusalem to destroy it; but when he was about to destroy it, the Lord saw and relented from the disaster, and said to the angel who was destroying, Enough! Now stay your hand; and the angel of the Lord was standing at the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite.

¹⁶And David lifted his eyes and saw the angel of the LORD standing between earth and the heavens, with his sword drawn in his hand, stretched out over Jerusalem. And David and the elders, clothed in sackcloth, fell on their faces.

¹⁷And David said to God, 'Was it not I who gave the command to count the people? I am the one who sinned, and I did evil indeed! But these, the flock -- what have they done? O Lord my God, let your hand be upon me and upon the house of my father, but not upon your people for a plague.'

¹⁸And the angel of the LORD said to Gad, to say to David, that David should go up to erect an altar to the LORD at the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite.

¹⁹And David went up at the word of Gad, which he spoke in the name of the Lord.

²⁰And Ornan turned and saw the angel, and his four sons with him were hiding themselves; now Ornan was threshing wheat.

²¹And David came to Ornan. And Ornan looked and saw David, and went out from the threshing floor and bowed himself down before David, face to the ground.

²²And David said to Ornan, Give me the place of the threshing floor, so that I can build on it an altar to the Lord; give it to me for the full price, so that the plague may be stopped from the people.

²³And Ornan said to David, 'Take it for yourself, and let my lord the king do what is good in his eyes. Look, I give the oxen for burnt offerings, and the threshing sledges for wood, and the wheat for a grain offering -- all of it I give.'

²⁴And King David said to Ornan: No, but I will surely buy it for full price, for I will not take what is yours for the LORD or offer a burnt offering for nothing.

²⁵And David gave to Ornan for the place six hundred shekels of gold by weight.

²⁶And David built there an altar to the LORD and offered up burnt offerings and peace offerings, and called upon the LORD, and he answered him with fire from the heavens upon the altar of the burnt offering.

²⁷And the Lord said to the angel, and he put his sword back into its sheath.

²⁸At that time, when David saw that the LORD had answered him at the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite, he sacrificed there.

²⁹And the tabernacle of the Lord, which Moses had made in the wilderness, and the altar of burnt offering were at that time at the high place in Gibeon.

³⁰And David could not go before it to seek God, for he was terrified because of the sword of the angel of the LORD.