1Now Satan stood up against Israel, and he incited David to number Israel.
2So David said to Joab and to the commanders of the people, “Go, count Israel from Beersheba to Dan, and bring back word to me, that I may know their number.”
3But Joab said, “May Yahweh add to his people a hundred times as many as they are! Are they not all, my lord the king, servants to my lord? Why does my lord seek this thing? Why should it become a cause of guilt for Israel?”
4But the king’s word prevailed against Joab, so Joab went out and traveled about through all Israel, and he came to Jerusalem.
5Then Joab gave the number of the census of the people to David; 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 count among them, for the king’s word was abhorrent to Joab.
7And it was evil in the eyes of God concerning this thing, so he struck Israel.
8Then David said to God, “I have sinned greatly in that I have done this thing. But now, please take away the iniquity of your servant, for I have acted very foolishly.”
9And Yahweh spoke to Gad, David’s seer, saying,
10“Go and speak to David, saying, ‘Thus says Yahweh: Three things I am holding out over you; choose for yourself one of them, that I may do it to you.’”
11So Gad came to David and said to him, “Thus says Yahweh: Take your choice—
12either three years of famine, or three months of being swept away before your foes while the sword of your enemies overtakes you, or three days of the sword of Yahweh—pestilence in the land, with the angel of Yahweh ravaging throughout all the territory of Israel. Now then, consider what answer I should return to the one who sent me.”
13And David said to Gad, “I am in great distress. Let me fall into the hand of Yahweh, for his mercies are very great, but into the hand of man let me not fall.”
14So Yahweh sent a pestilence upon Israel, and there fell of Israel seventy thousand men.
15And God sent an angel to Jerusalem to destroy it, but as he was destroying, Yahweh saw and relented concerning the disaster, and he said to the destroying angel, “Enough! Now stay your hand.” And the angel of Yahweh was standing by the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite.
16And David lifted up his eyes and saw the angel of Yahweh standing between the earth and the heavens, with his drawn sword in his hand stretched out over Jerusalem. Then David and the elders fell on their faces, covered with sackcloth.
17And David said to God, “Was it not I who commanded to count the people? It is I who have sinned and done great evil, but these, the flock—what have they done? Yahweh my God, let your hand, I pray, be against me and against my father’s house, but not against your people as a plague.”
18Then the angel of Yahweh commanded Gad to say to David that David should go up and set up an altar to Yahweh on the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite.
19So David went up at the word of Gad, which he had spoken in the name of Yahweh.
20Now Ornan had turned and seen the angel, and his four sons who were with him hid themselves; and Ornan was threshing wheat.
21And David came to Ornan, and Ornan looked and saw David, and he went out from the threshing floor and bowed down to David with his face to the ground.
22And David said to Ornan, “Give me the site of the threshing floor, that I may build on it an altar to Yahweh—give it to me for the full price—so that the plague may be halted from upon the people.”
23And Ornan said to David, “Take it for yourself, and let my lord the king do what is good in his eyes. See, I give the oxen for burnt offerings, and the threshing sledges for the wood, and the wheat for the grain offering—I give it all.”
24But King David said to Ornan, “No, for I will surely buy it for the full price, for I will not take up what is yours for Yahweh, nor offer up a burnt offering that costs me nothing.”
25So David gave Ornan for the site six hundred shekels of gold by weight.
26And David built there an altar to Yahweh and offered up burnt offerings and peace offerings, and he called out to Yahweh, and he answered him with fire from the heavens upon the altar of burnt offering.
27Then Yahweh spoke to the angel, and he returned his sword to its sheath.
28At that time, when David saw that Yahweh had answered him at the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite, he sacrificed there.
29But the tabernacle of Yahweh, which Moses had made in the wilderness, and the altar of burnt offering were at that time on the high place at Gibeon.
30Yet David was not able to go before it to inquire of God, because he was terrified before the sword of the angel of Yahweh.
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