¹⁵ And God sent an angel^(A) to destroy Jerusalem.^(B) But as the angel was doing so, the Lord saw it and relented^(C) concerning the disaster and said to the angel who was destroying^(D) the people, “Enough! Withdraw your hand.” The angel of the Lord was then standing at the threshing floor of Araunah^[a] the Jebusite.

¹⁶ David looked up and saw the angel of the Lord standing between heaven and earth, with a drawn sword in his hand extended over Jerusalem. Then David and the elders, clothed in sackcloth, fell facedown.^(E)

¹⁷ David said to God, “Was it not I who ordered the fighting men to be counted? I, the shepherd,^[b] have sinned and done wrong. These are but sheep.^(F) What have they done? Lord my God, let your hand fall on me and my family,^(G) but do not let this plague remain on your people.”

David Builds an Altar

¹⁸ Then the angel of the Lord ordered Gad to tell David to go up and build an altar to the Lord on the threshing floor^(H) of Araunah the Jebusite. ¹⁹ So David went up in obedience to the word that Gad had spoken in the name of the Lord.

²⁰ While Araunah was threshing wheat,^(I) he turned and saw the angel; his four sons who were with him hid themselves. ²¹ Then David approached, and when Araunah looked and saw him, he left the threshing floor and bowed down before David with his face to the ground.

²¹ Araunah said, “Why has my lord the king come to his servant?”

“To buy your threshing floor,” David answered, “so I can build an altar to the Lord, that the plague on the people may be stopped.”^(A)

²² Araunah said to David, “Let my lord the king take whatever he wishes and offer it up. Here are oxen^(B) for the burnt offering, and here are threshing sledges and ox yokes for the wood. ²³ Your Majesty, Araunah^[a] gives^(C) all this to the king.” Araunah also said to him, “May the Lord your God accept you.”

²⁴ But the king replied to Araunah, “No, I insist on paying you for it. I will not sacrifice to the Lord my God burnt offerings that cost me nothing.”^(D)

So David bought the threshing floor and the oxen and paid fifty shekels^[b](E) of silver for them.

²⁵ So David paid Araunah six hundred shekels^[a] of gold for the site. ²⁶ David built an altar to the Lord there and sacrificed burnt offerings and fellowship offerings. He called on the Lord, and the Lord answered him with fire^(A) from heaven on the altar of burnt offering.

²⁷ Then the Lord spoke to the angel, and he put his sword back into its sheath. ²⁸ At that time, when David saw that the Lord had answered him on the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite, he offered sacrifices there. ²⁹ The tabernacle of the Lord, which Moses had made in the wilderness, and the altar of burnt offering were at that time on the high place at Gibeon.^{(B) 30} But David could not go before it to inquire of God, because he was afraid of the sword of the angel of the Lord.

Psalm 103

Of David.