David’s Census and the Plague
1Satan stood up against Israel and incited David to count Israel. 2David said to Joab and to the commanders of the people, “Go, count Israel, from Beersheba to Dan, and bring me the number, that I may know it.” 3Joab said, “May Yahweh add to his people a hundred times as many as they are! But my lord the king, are they not all my lord’s servants? Why does my lord seek this? Why should it become a cause of guilt for Israel?” 4But the king’s word prevailed against Joab. So Joab set out, went throughout all Israel, and returned to Jerusalem. 5Joab gave the count of the people to David: all Israel numbered one million one hundred thousand men who drew the sword, and Judah numbered four hundred seventy thousand men who drew the sword. 6But Levi and Benjamin he did not count among them, for the king’s command was abhorrent to Joab. 7This thing was evil in the eyes of God, so he struck Israel. 8David said to God, “I have sinned greatly in doing this thing. Now, please take away the guilt of your servant, for I have acted very foolishly.” 9Yahweh spoke to Gad, David’s seer, saying, 10“Go and tell David: Thus says Yahweh — I offer you three things; choose one of them for yourself, and I will do it to you.” 11So Gad came to David and said to him, “Thus says Yahweh: Choose for yourself — 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 — plague in the land, with the angel of Yahweh bringing destruction throughout all the territory of Israel. Now decide what answer I should bring to the one who sent me.” 13David said to Gad, “I am in great distress. Let me fall into the hand of Yahweh, for his mercies are very great; but do not let me fall into human hands.” 14So Yahweh sent a plague on Israel, and seventy thousand men of Israel fell. 15God sent an angel to Jerusalem to destroy it, but as he was about to destroy it, Yahweh saw and relented concerning the calamity, and he said to the destroying angel, “Enough! Now stay your hand.” The angel of Yahweh was standing by the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite. 16David looked up and saw the angel of Yahweh standing between earth and heaven, with a drawn sword in his hand stretched out over Jerusalem. Then David and the elders, covered in sackcloth, fell on their faces. 17David said to God, “Was it not I who gave the order to count the people? I am the one who sinned and did great evil. But these sheep, what have they done? Yahweh my God, let your hand be against me and against my father’s house, but do not let the plague be against your people.”
The Altar on Ornan’s Threshing Floor
18Then the angel of Yahweh told 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. 20Ornan turned and saw the angel, and his four sons with him hid themselves. Now Ornan was threshing wheat. 21As David approached Ornan, Ornan looked up and saw David, and went out from the threshing floor and bowed down to David with his face to the ground. 22David said to Ornan, “Give me the site of this threshing floor, that I may build on it an altar to Yahweh — give it to me for its full price — so that the plague may be stopped from the people.” 23Ornan said to David, “Take it for yourself, and let my lord the king do what is good in his eyes. See, I give you the oxen for burnt offerings, the threshing sledges for wood, and the wheat for the grain offering — I give it all.” 24But King David said to Ornan, “No, I will indeed buy it for its full price. I will not take what is yours for Yahweh, or offer a burnt offering that costs me nothing.” 25So David gave Ornan six hundred shekels of gold by weight for the site. 26David built an altar to Yahweh there, and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings, and called on Yahweh, and he answered him with fire from heaven on 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 on the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite, he offered sacrifices there. 29For the tabernacle of Yahweh, which Moses had made in the wilderness, and the altar of burnt offering, were at that time at the high place in Gibeon. 30But David could not go before it to seek God, because he was terrified by the sword of the angel of Yahweh.
