2 Samuel 24

¹And again the anger of the LORD burned against Israel, and he incited David against them, saying, 'Go, count Israel and Judah.'

²The king said to Joab, the commander of the army who was with him, 'Go throughout all the tribes of Israel, from Dan to Beer-sheba, and take a census of the people, so that I may know the number of the people.'

³And Joab said to the king: 'May the Lord your God add to the people a hundred times as many as they are, while the eyes of my lord the king still see it -- but why does my lord the king delight in this thing?'

⁴But the king's word prevailed over Joab and over the commanders of the army; so Joab and the commanders of the army went out from before the king to count the people of Israel.

⁵They crossed the Jordan and encamped at Aroer, south of the city that is in the middle of the gorge of Gad, and toward Jazer.

⁶Then they came to Gilead and to the land of Tahtim-hodshi, and they came to Dan-jaan and around to Sidon.

⁷They came to the fortress of Tyre and all the cities of the Hivites and of the Canaanites, and they went out to the Negeb of Judah, to Beer-sheba.

⁸They roamed through all the land and came back to Jerusalem at the end of nine months and twenty days.

⁹And Joab gave the king the number of the census of the people: Israel had eight hundred thousand valiant men who drew the sword, and the men of Judah were five hundred thousand.

¹⁰And the heart of David smote him after he had numbered the people, and David said to the Lord, I have sinned greatly in what I have done; and now, O Lord, remove, please, the iniquity of your servant, for I have done very foolishly.

¹¹When David arose in the morning, the word of the LORD had come to Gad the prophet, the seer of David, saying,

¹²Go and speak to David, 'Thus says the LORD: I am laying three things upon you; choose one of them for yourself, and I will do it to you.'

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

¹⁴David said to Gad, 'I am in great distress. Let us fall into the hand of the LORD, for great is his mercy; but into the hand of man let me not fall.'

¹⁵So the LORD sent a plague on Israel from the morning until the appointed time, and there died of the people from Dan to Beer-sheba seventy thousand men.

¹⁶And the angel stretched out his hand toward Jerusalem to destroy it, but the LORD relented concerning the disaster and said to the angel who was destroying the people: Enough! Now stay your hand. And the angel of the LORD was at the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite.

¹⁷And David spoke to the LORD when he saw the angel who was striking down the people, and said, 'Behold, I have sinned and I have done wrong; but these are the sheep, what have they done? Let your hand be against me and against my father's house.'

¹⁸And Gad came to David on that day and said to him, Go up, erect for the Lord an altar on the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite.

¹⁹So David went up according to the word of Gad, as the LORD had commanded.

²⁰And Araunah looked out and saw the king and his servants passing over toward him, and Araunah went out and bowed down before the king with his face to the ground.

²¹Araunah said, 'Why has my lord the king come to his servant?' David said, 'To buy the threshing floor from you, to build an altar to the LORD, that the plague may be checked from the people.'

²²And Araunah said to David: Let my lord the king take and offer up whatever seems good to him. See, here are the cattle for the burnt offering, and the threshing sledges and the equipment of the cattle for the wood.

²³All this Araunah the king gave to the king. And Araunah said to the king, 'May the LORD your God accept you.'

²⁴And the king said to Araunah, No, for I will surely buy it from you at a price; I will not offer to the Lord my God burnt offerings that cost nothing. So David bought the threshing floor and the oxen for fifty shekels of silver.

²⁵And David built there an altar to the LORD, and he offered up burnt offerings and peace offerings. And the LORD was moved by entreaty for the land, and the plague was restrained from upon Israel.