¹¹ When David got up in the morning, the word of Yahweh came to Gad the prophet, the seer of David, saying, ¹² “Go and speak to David, ‘Thus says Yahweh, three things I am laying on you; choose for yourself one of them and I will do it to you.’” ¹³ Then Gad came to David, and he told him and said to him, “Shall seven years of famine in the land come to you? Or three months of your fleeing from your enemies while he is pursuing you? Or should there be three days of pestilence in your land? Now consider and decide what I must return to the one who sent me a word.” ¹⁴ Then David said to Gad, “I am greatly distressed. Please let us fall into the hand of Yahweh, because he is great in his compassion; but into the hand of man don’t let me fall.” ¹⁵ Then Yahweh sent a plague into Israel from the morning until the agreed time,^[a] and from the people from Dan to Beersheba, seventy thousand men died.

¹⁶ When the angel stretched out his hand to destroy Jerusalem, Yahweh regretted about the evil, and he said to the angel who brought destruction among the people, “Enough, now relax your hand.” Now the angel of Yahweh was at the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite. ¹⁷ David spoke to Yahweh when he saw the angel destroying among the people, and he said, “Look, I have sinned and I have done wrong, but these sheep, what did they do? Please let your hand be against me and against the house of my father.”