² “From the whole community of Israel, record the names of all the warriors by their clans and families. List all the men

²⁶ This silver came from the tax collected from each man registered in the census. (The tax is one beka, which is half a shekel,^[a] based on the sanctuary shekel.) The tax was collected from 603,550 men who had reached their twentieth birthday.

¹² “Whenever you take a census of the people of Israel, each man who is counted must pay a ransom for himself to the Lord. Then no plague will strike the people as you count them.

¹⁸ and they assembled the whole community of Israel on that very day.^[a] All the people were registered according to their ancestry by their clans and families. The men of Israel who were twenty years old or older were listed one by one,

² “From the whole community of Israel, record the names of all the warriors by their families. List all the men twenty years old or older who are able to go to war.”

³ So there on the plains of Moab beside the Jordan River, across from Jericho, Moses and Eleazar the priest issued these instructions to the leaders of Israel: ⁴ “List all the men of Israel twenty years old and older, just as the Lord commanded Moses.”

This is the record of all the descendants of Israel who came out of Egypt.

²³ When David took his census, he did not count those who were younger than twenty years of age, because the Lord had promised to make the Israelites as numerous as the stars in heaven. ²⁴ Joab son of Zeruiah began the census but never finished it because^[a] the anger of God fell on Israel. The total number was never recorded in King David’s official records.

David Takes a Census

21 Satan rose up against Israel and caused David to take a census of the people of Israel. ² So David said to Joab and the commanders of the army, “Take a census of all the people of Israel—from Beersheba in the south to Dan in the north—and bring me a report so I may know how many there are.”

David Takes a Census

24 Once again the anger of the Lord burned against Israel, and he caused David to harm them by taking a census. “Go and count the people of Israel and Judah,” the Lord told him.

² So the king said to Joab and the commanders^[a] of the army, “Take a census of all the tribes of Israel—from Dan in the north to Beersheba in the south—so I may know how many people there are.”

³ But Joab replied to the king, “May the Lord your God let you live to see a hundred times as many people as there are now! But why, my lord the king, do you want to do this?”

⁶³ So these are the results of the registration of the people of Israel as conducted by Moses and Eleazar the priest on the plains of Moab beside the Jordan River, across from Jericho. ⁶⁴ Not one person on this list had been among those listed in the previous registration taken by Moses and Aaron in the wilderness of Sinai.