¹⁴ So the Lord sent a plague on Israel, and 70,000 Israelites died. ¹⁵ God also sent a Messenger to Jerusalem to destroy it, but as he was destroying it, the Lord reconsidered and changed his mind about the disaster. “Enough!” he said to the destroying Messenger. “Put down your weapon.” The Messenger of the Lord was standing by the threshing floor ^[a] of Ornan the Jebusite.

¹⁶ When David looked up, he saw the Messenger of the Lord standing between heaven and earth. The Messenger had a sword in his hand and stretched it over Jerusalem. David and the leaders were dressed in sackcloth. They bowed down with their faces touching the ground.