[1] Satan stood up against Israel, and moved David to number Israel. [2]
David said to Joab and to the princes of the people, Go, number Israel from
Beersheba even to Dan; and bring me word, that I may know the sum of them.
[3] Joab said, Yahweh make his people a hundred times as many as they are:
but, my lord the king, aren`t they all my lord`s servants? why does my lord
require this thing? why will he be a cause of guilt to Israel? [4]
Nevertheless the king`s word prevailed against Joab. Why Joab departed, and
went throughout all Israel, and came to Jerusalem. [5] Joab gave up the sum
of the numbering of the people to David. All those of Israel were one
million one hundred thousand men who drew sword: and in Judah were four
hundred seventy thousand men who drew sword. [6] But he didn`t count Levi
and Benjamin among them; for the king`s word was abominable to Joab. [7]
God was displeased with this thing; therefore he struck Israel. [8] David
said to God, I have sinned greatly, in that I have done this thing: but
now, put away, I beg you, the iniquity of your servant; for I have done
very foolishly. [9] Yahweh spoke to Gad, David`s seer, saying, [10] Go and
speak to David, saying, Thus says Yahweh, I offer you three things: choose
you one of them, that I may do it to you. [11] So Gad came to David, and
said to him, Thus says Yahweh, Take which you will: [12] either three years
of famine; or three months to be consumed before your foes, while the sword
of your enemies overtakes you; or else three days the sword of Yahweh, even
pestilence in the land, and the angel of Yahweh destroying throughout all
the borders of Israel. Now therefore consider what answer I shall return to
him who sent me. [13] David said to Gad, I am in a great strait: let me
fall, I pray, into the hand of Yahweh; for very great are his mercies: and
let me not fall into the hand of man. [14] So Yahweh sent a pestilence on
Israel; and there fell of Israel seventy thousand men. [15] God sent an
angel to Jerusalem to destroy it: and as he was about to destroy, Yahweh
saw, and he repented him of the evil, and said to the destroying angel, It
is enough; now stay your hand. The angel of Yahweh was standing by the
threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite. [16] David lifted up his eyes, and
saw the angel of Yahweh standing between earth and the sky, having a drawn
sword in his hand stretched out over Jerusalem. Then David and the elders,
clothed in sackcloth, fell on their faces. [17] David said to God, Isn`t it
I who commanded the people to be numbered? It is even I who have sinned and
done very wickedly; but these sheep, what have they done? Please let your
hand, O Yahweh my God, be against me, and against my father`s house; but
not against your people, that they should be plagued. [18] Then the angel
of Yahweh commanded Gad to tell David, that David should go up, and raise
an altar to Yahweh in the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite. [19] David
went up at the saying of Gad, which he spoke in the name of Yahweh. [20]
Ornan turned back, and saw the angel; and his four sons who were with him
hid themselves. Now Ornan was threshing wheat. [21] As David came to Ornan,
Ornan looked and saw David, and went out of the threshing floor, and bowed
himself to David with his face to the ground. [22] Then David said to
Ornan, Give me the place of this threshing floor, that I may build thereon
an altar to Yahweh: for the full price shall you give it me, that the
plague may be stayed from the people. [23] Ornan said to David, Take it to
you, and let my lord the king do that which is good in his eyes: behold, I
give [you] the oxen for burnt offerings, and the threshing instruments for
wood, and the wheat for the meal-offering; I give it all. [24] King David
said to Ornan, No; but I will most assuredly buy it for the full price: for
I will not take that which is your for Yahweh, nor offer a burnt-offering
without cost. [25] So David gave to Ornan for the place six hundred shekels
of gold by weight. [26] David built there an altar to Yahweh, and offered
burnt offerings and peace-offerings, and called on Yahweh; and he answered
him from the sky by fire on the altar of burnt offering. [27] Yahweh
commanded the angel; and he put up his sword again into the sheath of it.
[28] At that time, when David saw that Yahweh had answered him in the
threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite, then he sacrificed there. [29] For
the tent of Yahweh, which Moses made in the wilderness, and the altar of
burnt offering, were at that time in the high place at Gibeon. [30] But
David couldn`t go before it to inquire of God; for he was afraid because of
the sword of the angel of Yahweh.