⁷ God was displeased with this thing; therefore he struck Israel. ⁸ David said to God, “I have sinned greatly, in that I have done this thing. But now put away, I beg you, the iniquity of your servant; for I have done very foolishly.”

⁹ Yahweh spoke to Gad, David’s seer, saying, ¹⁰ “Go and speak to David, saying, ‘Yahweh says, “I offer you three things. Choose one of them, that I may do it to you.”’”

¹¹ So Gad came to David, and said to him, “Yahweh says, ‘Take your choice: ¹² either three years of famine; or three months to be consumed before your foes, while the sword of your enemies overtakes you; or else three days the sword of Yahweh, even pestilence in the land, and Yahweh’s angel destroying throughout all the borders of Israel. Now therefore consider what answer I shall return to him who sent me.’”

¹³ David said to Gad, “I am in distress. Let me fall, I pray, into Yahweh’s hand; for his mercies are very great. Don’t let me fall into man’s hand.”

¹⁴ So Yahweh sent a pestilence on Israel, and seventy thousand men of Israel fell. ¹⁵ God sent an angel to Jerusalem to destroy it. As he was about to destroy, Yahweh saw, and he relented of the disaster, and said to the destroying angel, “It is enough. Now withdraw your hand.” Yahweh’s angel was standing by the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite. ¹⁶ David lifted up his eyes, and saw Yahweh’s angel standing between earth and the sky, having a drawn sword in his hand stretched out over Jerusalem.

Then David and the elders, clothed in sackcloth, fell on their faces. ¹⁷ David said to God, “Isn’t it I who commanded the people to be counted? It is even I who have sinned and done very wickedly; but these sheep, what have they done? Please let your hand, O Yahweh my God, be against me, and against my father’s house; but not against your people, that they should be plagued.”