²¹ Araunah said, “Why has my lord the king come to his servant?” David said, “To buy the threshing floor from you in order to build an altar to the Lord, so that the plague may be averted from the people.”^(A)

⁶ Jeremiah said, “The word of the Lord came to me: ⁷ Hanamel son of your uncle Shallum is going to come to you and say, ‘Buy my field that is at Anathoth, for the right of redemption by purchase is yours.’ ”^{(A) 8} Then my cousin Hanamel came to me in the court of the guard, in accordance with the word of the Lord, and said to me, “Buy my field that is at Anathoth in the land of Benjamin, for the right of possession and redemption is yours; buy it for yourself.” Then I knew that this was the word of the Lord.

⁹ And I bought the field at Anathoth from my cousin Hanamel and weighed out the silver to him, seventeen shekels of silver.^{(B) 10} I signed the deed, sealed it, got witnesses, and weighed the silver on scales.^{(C) 11} Then I took the sealed deed of purchase containing the terms and conditions and the open copy,^{(D) 12} and I gave the deed of purchase to Baruch son of Neriah son of Mahseiah, in the presence of my cousin^[a] Hanamel, in the presence of the witnesses who signed the deed of purchase, and in the presence of all the Judeans who were sitting in the court of the guard.^{(E) 13} In their presence I charged Baruch, saying, ¹⁴ “Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Take these deeds, both this sealed deed of purchase and this open deed, and put them in an earthenware jar, in order that they may last for a long time.

²² David said to Ornan, “Give me the site of the threshing floor that I may build on it an altar to the Lord—give it to me at its full price—so that the plague may be averted from the people.”

David’s Altar on the Threshing Floor

¹⁸ That day Gad came to David and said to him, “Go up and erect an altar to the Lord on the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite.”^(A)

³ But Joab said to the king, “May the Lord your God increase the number of the people a hundredfold while the eyes of my lord the king can still see it! But why does my lord the king want to do this?”

³ David said to the Gibeonites, “What shall I do for you? How shall I make expiation, that you may bless the heritage of the Lord?”^{(A) 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 anyone to death in Israel.” He said, “What do you say that I should do for you?”^{(B) 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,^{(C) 6} let seven of his sons be handed over to us, and we will impale them before the Lord at Gibeon on the mountain of the Lord.”^[a] The king said, “I will hand them over.”

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

¹⁰ Then Rizpah the daughter of Aiah took sackcloth and spread it on a rock for herself, from the beginning of harvest until rain fell on them from the heavens; she did not allow the birds of the air to come on the bodies^[c] by day or the wild animals by night.^{(F) 11} When David was told what Rizpah 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 people of Jabesh-gilead, who had stolen them from the public square of Beth-shan, where the Philistines had hung them up, on the day the Philistines killed Saul on Gilboa.^{(G) 13} He brought up from there the bones of Saul and the bones of his son Jonathan, and they gathered the bones of those who had been impaled. ¹⁴ They buried the bones of Saul and of his son Jonathan in the land of Benjamin in Zela, in the tomb of his father Kish; they did all that the king commanded. After that, God heeded supplications for the land.^(H)

⁸ he went after the Israelite man into the tent and pierced the two of them, the Israelite and the woman, through the belly. So the plague was stopped among the Israelites.

⁴⁴ and the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, ⁴⁵ “Get away from this congregation, so that I may consume them in a moment.” And they fell on their faces.^{(A) 46} Moses said to Aaron, “Take your censer, put fire on it from the altar and lay incense on it and carry it quickly to the congregation and make atonement for them. For wrath has gone out from the Lord; the plague has begun.”^{(B) 47} So Aaron took it as Moses had ordered and ran into the middle of the assembly, where the plague had already begun among the people. He put on the incense and made atonement for the people.^{(C) 48} He stood between the dead and the living, and the plague was stopped.^{(D) 49} Those who died by the plague were fourteen thousand seven hundred, besides those who died in the affair of Korah.^{(E) 50} When the plague was stopped, Aaron returned to Moses at the entrance of the tent of meeting.