Beginning

David wins against his enemies

18 After some time, David attacked the Philistines and he won against them. He took Gath city and the villages around it from the Philistines.

² David also won a battle against the Moabites. They were now under David's authority and they paid taxes to him.

³ David also won a battle against Hadadezer, king of Zobah. He won land as far as Hamath. That happened when Hadadezer took his army to the Euphrates river to show that he had authority there. ⁴ David took from Hadadezer 1,000 chariots and 7,000 men who drove them. He also caught 20,000 of Hadadezer's other soldiers. David kept 100 horses that pulled chariots. But he cut the legs of the other horses so that they could not run.

⁵ The Syrians from Damascus sent an army to help King Hadadezer of Zobah. But David killed 22,000 soldiers of the Syrian army. ⁶ David put some of his soldiers in Damascus to keep his authority over the Syrian people. They had to pay taxes to King David.

The Lord helped David to win all the battles that he fought.

⁷ David took the gold shields that Hadadezer's officers had carried. He brought the shields to Jerusalem. ⁸ David also took a lot of bronze things from Tebah and Cun. Those towns had belonged to Hadadezer towns. Later, Solomon used that bronze to make the big bath in the temple that was called ‘the Sea’. He also used the bronze to make pillars and other things for the temple.

⁹ Tou, the king of Hamath, heard news that David had won the battle against the whole army of King Hadadezer of Zobah. ¹⁰ There had been a war between King Hadadezer and King Tou. So Tou sent his son, Hadoram, to say ‘hello’ to King David. He wanted to praise David because he had won the battle against King Hadadezer. He also sent many gifts of gold, silver and bronze to David.

¹¹ King David took those gifts and he offered them to the Lord. He also offered to the Lord all the silver and gold things that he had taken from other nations. Those nations were Edom, Moab, the Ammonites, the Philistines and the Amalekites.

¹² Zeruiah's son Abishai killed 18,000 men from Edom in the Valley of Salt. ¹³ He put groups of his soldiers in Edom, so that David had authority over all the Edomites.

The Lord helped David to win all the battles that he fought.

David's officers

¹⁴ David ruled over all Israel. He did everything that was right and fair for all his people. ¹⁵ Zeruiah's son Joab was the leader of Israel's army. Ahilud's son Jehoshaphat wrote down the important things that happened. ¹⁶ Ahitub's son Zadok and Abiathar's son Ahimelech were priests. Shavsha was David's secretary. ¹⁷ Jehoiada's son Benaiah was the leader of David's personal guards. David's sons were his most important officers.^[a]

David fights against the Ammonites

19 After some time, Nahash, the king of the Ammonites, died. His son became the new king.^{[b] 2} David thought, ‘Nahash was kind to me, so I will be kind to his son Hanun.’ So David sent some of his officers to give a message to Hanun. David wanted to tell Hanun that he was sorry that his father Nahash had died.

David's officers took his kind message to the land of the Ammonites. ³ But the leaders of the Ammonites said to Hanun, ‘David has sent his officers to you with a kind message. But do not think that he really wants to give honour to your father. No, he has sent his men to look at our land. They want to see how they can attack our country and take it for themselves.’

⁴ So Hanun took hold of David's officers. He cut off their hair. He also cut off the lower half of their clothes up to their hips.^[c] Then he sent them away.

⁵ Some people came to tell David what had happened. His officers were very ashamed. So David sent men to them with a message. King David said, ‘Stay in Jericho city until your beards have grown again. Then you can return here.’

⁶ The Ammonites realized that they had caused David to be very angry. So King Hanun and his people made an agreement with the people of Aram-Naharaim, Aram-Maacah and Zobah. The Ammonites sent them about 34,000 kilograms of silver to get their help with chariots and their drivers. ⁷ They had 32,000 chariots to use in the battle. They also received help from the king of Maakah and his army. All these men made their camp near Medeba. At the same time King Hanun had brought together the Ammonite soldiers from their towns. They were all ready to fight.

⁸ David heard news about this. So he sent Joab with all the soldiers in his army to fight against them. ⁹ The Ammonite soldiers marched out from their city. They stood at the entrance of their city and they were ready to fight. The other kings and their soldiers stayed in the fields near the city.

¹⁰ Joab saw that there were two groups of the enemy's soldiers. They were ready to attack his army from different sides. So he chose some of Israel's best soldiers. Joab himself led them to attack the Syrian soldiers in the fields. ¹¹ He told his brother Abishai to lead the rest of Israel's army to fight against the Ammonites. ¹² Joab said to Abishai, ‘If the Syrian soldiers are too strong for me, you must come to rescue me. But if the Ammonites are too strong for you, I will come to rescue you. ¹³ Be strong! We must be brave as we fight on behalf of our people and the cities of our God. The Lord will do what he decides is good.’

¹⁴ Then Joab and his group of soldiers went to fight against the Syrians. As they marched towards the Syrian soldiers, they ran away. ¹⁵ The Ammonites saw that the Syrians were running away from Joab. So they also ran away from his brother Abishai's men. They went back into their city.

So Joab returned to Jerusalem.

¹⁶ The Syrian soldiers realized that Israel had won the battle against them. So they sent men with a message to fetch more soldiers to help them. More Syrian soldiers came from the other side of the Euphrates river. Shophach, the captain of Hadadezer's army, led them.

¹⁷ David heard about what was happening. So he took all Israel's soldiers across the Jordan River. David led his army to attack the Syrian soldiers. The Syrians also prepared to fight. When the battle started, ¹⁸ the Syrians ran away from the Israelites. David and his army killed 7,000 Syrians who drove chariots. They killed 40,000 other Syrian soldiers. They also killed Shophach, the captain of the Syrian army.

¹⁹ The kings who were under King Hadadezer's authority saw that Israel had won the battle. So they made an agreement with David that they would not fight against Israel any more. They agreed to be under David's authority. After that, the Syrians would no longer agree to help the Ammonites.

Joab wins the fight for Rabbah

20 In the spring, Joab led the Israelite army out to fight. That was the time of year when kings go out to fight battles. Joab and his army attacked the land of the Ammonites and he won against them. He put his soldiers around Rabbah city so that they could attack it. But David had stayed in Jerusalem. Joab attacked Rabbah and he destroyed its buildings.

² When David came, he took the crown off the Ammonite king's head. The crown was made of gold. It weighed 34 kilograms. There was a valuable jewel fixed on it. David's men then put the crown on David's head. David also took a lot of valuable things from the city. ³ He brought the people out from the city to do hard work for him. He made them cut wood with saws, and use iron tools and axes. He did the same thing to the people of all the other Ammonite cities.

Then David and all his army returned to Jerusalem.

The army fights the Philistines

⁴ Some time after that, the Israelites fought a battle against the Philistines at Gezer. In that battle, Sibbecai from Hushah killed Sippai. Sippai was a descendant of Rapha.^[d] So Israel won against the Philistines.

⁵ In another battle against the Philistines, Jair's son Elhanan killed Lahmi. Lahmi was the brother of Goliath who came from Gath. He had a spear that was very thick and heavy, like a big tree.

⁶ There was another battle at Gath. Another descendant of Rapha fought against the Israelites there. He was a very large man. He had six fingers on each hand and six toes on each foot. ⁷ He shouted to insult the Israelite soldiers. So Jonathan, the son of David's brother Shimea, killed him.

⁸ Those Philistines were descendants of Rapha and they lived in Gath. David and his soldiers killed all of them.

The Lord punishes the Israelites

21 Then Satan caused David to bring trouble to Israel.^[e] He caused David to count all the men in Israel. ² So David said to Joab and to the officers in his army, ‘Go and count the men everywhere in Israel, from Beersheba to Dan. Then come and give me a report. I want to know how many men there are.’

³ But Joab replied, ‘I pray that the Lord will make your army grow 100 times bigger! All your men are your faithful servants, my lord the king. But why do you want to do this? You will cause all Israel to become guilty.’

⁴ But Joab had to obey the king's command. So Joab left. He went through all Israel and then he returned to Jerusalem. ⁵ Joab reported to David about the number of soldiers who could fight. There were 1,100,000 men in all Israel who could fight with swords. There were 470,000 men in Judah who could fight with swords.

⁶ But the king's command had seemed disgusting to Joab. So he did not count the men from the tribes of Levi and Benjamin. ⁷ God was also angry because David had done this thing. So he decided to punish Israel. ⁸ Then David said to God, ‘What I have done was a bad sin. Please forgive me. I have done a foolish thing.’

⁹ Gad was David's prophet. The Lord said to him, ¹⁰ ‘Go and give my message to David: “There are three ways that I could punish you. You must choose one of them, and that is what I will do to punish you.” ’

¹¹ So Gad went to David and he said to him, ‘This is what the Lord says: “You must choose one of these punishments. ¹² You may choose to have three years when there will be a famine. Or you may choose to have three months when you have to run away from your enemies' swords so that they do not kill you. Or you may choose to have three days when a very bad disease comes to your people. The angel of the Lord would kill many people in every part of Israel.” Now decide which punishment you will choose. I will take your answer to God, who sent me with this message.’

¹³ David said to Gad, ‘I am very upset. I do not want men to punish me. The Lord is kind and he forgives people. So it is better if he punishes me.’

¹⁴ So the Lord caused a very bad disease to kill people in Israel. 70,000 Israelite men died. ¹⁵ God sent his angel to destroy Jerusalem. But as the angel started to kill people, the Lord saw what was happening. He decided to stop the punishment that he was causing. He said to the angel who was killing the people, ‘That is enough. Stop what you are doing!’ When the Lord said that, his angel was standing near the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite.

¹⁶ David looked up and he saw the Lord's angel. The angel was standing between the earth and the sky. He had his sword in his hand and it was pointing towards Jerusalem. David and the leaders fell down with their faces towards the ground. They were wearing clothes that were made of rough sackcloth.

¹⁷ David said to God, ‘I am the person who has done an evil thing. I told Joab to count the number of men in my army. These people have followed me like sheep that follow a shepherd. They have not done anything wrong. Lord my God, you should only punish me and my family. But please take this disease away from your people.’

¹⁸ Then the angel of the Lord said to Gad, ‘Tell David to go up to the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite. Build an altar there to worship the Lord.’ ¹⁹ So David obeyed the Lord's message that Gad had spoken to him.

²⁰ Araunah and his four sons were threshing wheat. Araunah turned around and he saw the Lord's angel. His sons hid themselves. ²¹ Then David came to meet Araunah. When Araunah saw David, he came out from the threshing floor. He bent down low in front of David, with his face towards the ground. ²² David said to Araunah, ‘Let me buy this threshing floor from you. I want to build an altar here to worship the Lord. Then he will stop this bad disease from killing the people. I will pay you the whole price for the land.’

²³ Araunah replied, ‘My lord the king, please take it for yourself. You may do what you would like to do. Look, I will give you the bulls for the burnt offerings. You can use the wood from these tools for the fire. Take my wheat to make an offering to the Lord. I will give all these things to you.’

²⁴ But King David said to Araunah, ‘No, I must pay you the whole price. I cannot offer something that belongs to you as a sacrifice to the Lord. I cannot offer to him a burnt offering that has cost me nothing.’

²⁵ So David paid Araunah 600 gold coins to buy the place. ²⁶ Then he built an altar there to worship the Lord. He offered burnt offerings and friendship offerings on it. He prayed to the Lord and the Lord answered him. The Lord sent fire from the sky to burn up the sacrifice on the altar. ²⁷ Then the Lord told the angel to put his sword away into its pocket.

²⁸ David saw that the Lord had answered his prayer at the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite. So he offered sacrifices to God there. ²⁹ At that time the Lord's tabernacle was at Gibeon, where the Israelites worshipped God. The tabernacle was the special tent that Moses had made in the wilderness. The altar for burnt offerings was also at Gibeon. ³⁰ But David was not able to go there to meet with the Lord, because he was afraid of the sword of the Lord's angel.