2 Samuel 24:18-25

Complete Jewish Bible

¹⁸ Gad came to David that day and said to him, “Go, set up an altar to Adonai on the threshing-floor of Aravnah the Y’vusi.” ¹⁹ David went up and did what Gad had said, as Adonai had ordered. ²⁰ Aravnah looked out and saw the king and his servants coming toward him. Aravnah went out and prostrated himself before the king with his face to the ground. ²¹ Then Aravnah said, “Why has my lord the king come to his servant?” David said, “To buy your threshing-floor, in order to build an altar to Adonai, so that the plague will be lifted from the people.” ²² Aravnah said to David, “Let my lord the king take and offer up anything that seems good to him. Here are the oxen for the burnt offering; you can use the threshing-sledges and the yokes for the oxen as firewood. ²³ All this, O king, Aravnah gives to the king.” Then Aravnah said to the king, “May Adonai your God accept you.”

²⁴ But the king said to Aravnah, “No; I insist on buying it from you at a price. I refuse to offer to Adonai my God burnt offerings that cost me nothing.” So David bought the threshing-floor and the oxen for one-and-a-quarter pounds of silver shekels. ²⁵ Then David built an altar to Adonai there and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings. After this, Adonai took pity on the land and lifted the plague from Isra’el.