< 1 Chronicles 21 >
1 And Satan stood up against Israel, and moved David to number Israel.
2 And 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 And Joab said, Jehovah make 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 require this thing? Why will he be a cause of guilt to Israel?
4 Nevertheless the king's word prevailed against Joab. Therefore Joab departed, and went throughout all Israel, and came to Jerusalem.
5 And Joab gave up the sum of the numbering of the people to David. And all those of Israel were a million and a hundred thousand men who drew a sword. And Judah was four hundred seventy thousand men who drew a sword.
6 But he did not count Levi and Benjamin among them, for the king's word was abominable to Joab.
7 And God was displeased with this thing, therefore he smote Israel.
8 And David said to God, I have sinned greatly, in that I have done this thing. But now, put away, I beseech thee, the iniquity of thy servant, for I have done very foolishly.
9 And Jehovah spoke to Gad, David's seer, saying,
10 Go and speak to David, saying, Thus says Jehovah, I offer thee three things. Choose thee one of them, that I may do it to thee.
11 So Gad came to David, and said to him, Thus says Jehovah, Take which thou will:
12 either three years of famine, or three months to be consumed before thy foes while the sword of thine enemies overtakes thee, or else three days the sword of Jehovah, even pestilence in the land, and the agent of Jehovah destroying throughout all the borders of Israel. Now therefore consider what answer I shall return to him who sent me.
13 And David said to Gad, I am in a great strait. Let me fall, I pray, into the hand of Jehovah, for his mercies are very great, and let me not fall into the hand of man.
14 So Jehovah sent a pestilence upon Israel, and there fell of Israel seventy thousand men.
15 And God sent an agent to Jerusalem to destroy it. And as he was about to destroy, Jehovah beheld, and he relented of the evil, and said to the destroying agent, It is enough. Now halt thy hand. And the agent of Jehovah was standing by the threshing-floor of Ornan the Jebusite.
16 And David lifted up his eyes, and saw the agent of Jehovah standing between earth and heaven, having a drawn sword in his hand stretched out over Jerusalem. Then David and the elders, clothed in sackcloth, fell upon their faces.
17 And David said to God, Is it not I who commanded the people to be numbered? Even I it is who have sinned and done very badly. But these sheep, what have they done? Let thy hand, I pray thee, O Jehovah my God, be against me, and against my father's house, but not against thy people, that they should be plagued.
18 Then the agent of Jehovah commanded Gad to say to David that David should go up, and rear an altar to Jehovah in the threshing-floor of Ornan the Jebusite.
19 And David went up at the saying of Gad, which he spoke in the name of Jehovah.
20 And Ornan turned back, and saw the agent, and his four sons who were with him hid themselves. Now Ornan was threshing wheat.
21 And 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 Jehovah. For the full price thou shall give it me, that the plague may be stopped from the people.
23 And Ornan said to David, Take it to thee, and let my lord the king do that which is good in his eyes. Lo, I give thee the oxen for burnt offerings, and the threshing instruments for wood, and the wheat for the meal offering. I give it all.
24 And king David said to Ornan, No, but I will truly buy it for the full price. For I will not take that which is thine for Jehovah, nor offer a burnt offering without cost.
25 So David gave to Ornan for the place six hundred shekels of gold by weight.
26 And David built there an altar to Jehovah, and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings, and called upon Jehovah. And he answered him from heaven by fire upon the altar of burnt offering.
27 And Jehovah commanded the agent, and he put up his sword again into the sheath of it.
28 At that time, when David saw that Jehovah had answered him in the threshing-floor of Ornan the Jebusite, then he sacrificed there.
29 For the tabernacle of Jehovah, 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 could not go before it to inquire of God, for he was afraid because of the sword of the agent of Jehovah.
