21 And ^[a]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 Beer-sheba 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 doth my lord require this thing? why will he be a cause of guilt unto Israel? ⁴ Nevertheless the king’s word prevailed against Joab. Wherefore Joab departed, and went throughout all Israel, and came to Jerusalem. ⁵ And Joab gave up the sum of the numbering of the people unto David. And all they of Israel were a thousand thousand and a hundred thousand men that drew sword: and Judah was four hundred threescore and ten thousand men that drew sword. ⁶ But Levi and Benjamin counted he not 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 unto 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 spake unto Gad, David’s seer, saying, ¹⁰ Go and speak unto David, saying, Thus saith Jehovah, I ^[b]offer thee three things: choose thee one of them, that I may do it unto thee. ¹¹ So Gad came to David, and said unto him, Thus saith Jehovah, Take which thou wilt: ¹² either three years of famine; or three months to be consumed before thy foes, while the sword of thine enemies overtaketh thee; or else three days the sword of Jehovah, ^[c]even pestilence in the land, and the angel of Jehovah destroying throughout all the borders of Israel. Now therefore consider what answer I shall return to him that sent me. ¹³ And David said unto Gad, I am in a great strait: let me fall, I pray, into the hand of Jehovah; for very ^[d]great are his mercies: 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 angel unto Jerusalem to destroy it: and as he was about to destroy, Jehovah beheld, and he repented him of the evil, and said to the destroying angel, It is enough; now stay thy hand. And the angel of Jehovah was standing by the threshing-floor of ^[e]Ornan the Jebusite. ¹⁶ And David lifted up his eyes, and saw the angel 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 unto God, Is it not I that commanded the people to be numbered? even I it is that have sinned and done very wickedly; 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 angel of Jehovah commanded Gad to say to David, that David should go up, and rear an altar unto Jehovah in the threshing-floor of Ornan the Jebusite. ¹⁹ And David went up at the saying of Gad, which he spake in the name of Jehovah. ²⁰ And Ornan turned back, and saw the angel; and his four sons that 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 unto Jehovah: for the full price shalt thou give it me, that the plague may be stayed from the people. ²³ And Ornan said unto 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, Nay; but I will verily 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 unto 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 angel; and he put up his sword again into the sheath thereof.

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 angel of Jehovah.