The Census Tax

¹¹ The Lord said to Moses, ^12 (A)“When you take the census of the people of Israel, then each shall give ^(B)a ransom for his life to the Lord when you number them, that there be no plague among them when you number them. ¹³ Each one who is numbered in the census shall give this: half a shekel^[a] according to the ^(C)shekel of the sanctuary (the ^(D)shekel is twenty gerahs),^{[b] (E)}half a shekel as an offering to the Lord. ¹⁴ Everyone who is numbered in the census, from twenty years old and upward, shall give the Lord's offering. ¹⁵ The rich shall not give more, and the poor shall not give less, than ^(F)the half shekel, when you give the Lord's offering to make atonement for your lives. ¹⁶ You shall take the atonement money from the people of Israel and shall ^(G)give it for the service of the tent of meeting, that it may bring the people of Israel to ^(H)remembrance before the Lord, so as to make atonement for your lives.”

⁵⁰ And we have brought the Lord's offering, what each man found, articles of gold, armlets and bracelets, signet rings, earrings, and beads, ^(A)to make atonement for ourselves before the Lord.”

²⁰ and you shall say, ‘Moreover, your servant Jacob is behind us.’” For he thought, “I may appease him^[a] with the present that goes ahead of me, and afterward I shall see his face. Perhaps he will accept me.”^[b]

³⁰ The next day Moses said to the people, ^(A)“You have sinned a great sin. And now I will go up to the Lord; ^(B)perhaps I can make atonement for your sin.” ³¹ So Moses returned to the Lord and said, “Alas, ^(C)this people has sinned a great sin. They have ^(D)made for themselves gods of gold. ³² But now, if ^(E)you will forgive their sin—but if not, please ^(F)blot me out of ^(G)your book that you have written.” ³³ But the Lord said to Moses, ^(H)“Whoever has sinned against me, I will blot out of my book.

David Avenges the Gibeonites

21 Now there was a famine in the days of David for three years, year after year. And David ^(A)sought the face of the Lord. And the Lord said, “There is bloodguilt on Saul and on his house, because he put the Gibeonites to death.” ² So the king called the Gibeonites and spoke to them. Now the Gibeonites were not of the people of Israel but ^(B)of the remnant of the Amorites. Although the people of Israel had sworn to spare them, Saul had sought to strike them down in his zeal for the people of Israel and Judah. ³ And David said to the Gibeonites, “What shall I do for you? And how shall I make atonement, that you may bless ^(C)the heritage of the Lord?” ⁴ The Gibeonites said to him, “It is not a matter of silver or gold between us and Saul or his house; neither is it for us to put any man to death in Israel.” And he said, “What do you say that I shall do for you?” ⁵ They said to the king, “The man who consumed us and planned to destroy us, so that we should have no place in all the territory of Israel, ⁶ let seven of his sons be given to us, so that we may hang them before the Lord at ^(D)Gibeah of Saul, ^(E)the chosen of the Lord.” And the king said, “I will give them.”

⁷ But the king spared Mephibosheth, the son of Saul's son Jonathan, because of ^(F)the oath of the Lord that was between them, between David and Jonathan the son of Saul. ⁸ The king took the two sons of ^(G)Rizpah the daughter of Aiah, whom she bore to Saul, Armoni and Mephibosheth; and the five sons of Merab^[a] the daughter of Saul, whom ^(H)she bore to ^(I)Adriel the son of Barzillai the Meholathite; ⁹ and he gave them into the hands of the Gibeonites, and they hanged them on the mountain before the Lord, and the seven of them perished together. They were put to death in the first days of harvest, ^(J)at the beginning of barley harvest.

^10 (K)Then Rizpah the daughter of Aiah took sackcloth and spread it for herself on the rock, from the beginning of harvest until rain fell upon them from the heavens. And she did not allow the birds of the air to come upon them by day, or the beasts of the field by night. ¹¹ When David was told what Rizpah the daughter of Aiah, the concubine of Saul, had done, ¹² David went and took the bones of Saul and the bones of his son Jonathan from the men of Jabesh-gilead, ^(L)who had stolen them from the public square of ^(M)Beth-shan, where the Philistines had hanged them, on the day the Philistines killed Saul on Gilboa. ¹³ And he brought up from there the bones of Saul and the bones of his son Jonathan; and they gathered the bones of those who were hanged. ¹⁴ And they buried the bones of Saul and his son Jonathan in the land of Benjamin in ^(N)Zela, in the tomb of Kish his father. And they did all that the king commanded. And after that ^(O)God responded to the plea for the land.