three years of famine, or three months to be swept away before your foes while the sword of your enemies overtakes you, or else three days of the sword of the Lord: a plague in the land, and the angel of the Lord destroying throughout the territory of Israel.’ Now, therefore, consider what answer I shall bring back to Him who sent me.”

And God sent an angel to Jerusalem to destroy it; but as he was about to destroy it, the Lord saw and was sorry about the catastrophe, and said to the destroying angel, “It is enough; now relax your hand.” And the angel of the Lord was standing by the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite.

Then David raised his eyes and saw the angel of the Lord standing between earth and heaven, with his drawn sword in his hand stretched out over Jerusalem. Then David and the elders, covered with sackcloth, fell on their faces.

David’s Altar

Then the angel of the Lord commanded Gad to say to David, that David was to go up and build an altar to the Lord on the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite.

But David could not go before it to inquire of God, for he was terrified by the sword of the angel of the Lord.