Chronological
David counts his soldiers
24 The Lord again became angry with the Israelites. So he caused David to bring trouble to them. He said to David, ‘Send men to count the people in Israel and Judah.’
2 So the king said to Joab, the leader of his army, ‘Go from Dan to Beersheba, through all the tribes of Israel.[a] Count all the men who can fight. I want to know how many men there are.’
3 But Joab said to the king, ‘I pray that the Lord your God will make your army bigger and bigger. May it grow 100 times while you are alive to see it! But, my lord the king, why do you want to do this?’
4 But Joab and his officers had to obey the king's command. So Joab and the officers of the army went out to count the number of people in Israel.
5 They crossed the Jordan River. They made their first camp in a valley, on the south side of Aroer. Then they went through Gad's land and they reached Jazer. 6 They went from there to Gilead. Then they went to Kadesh in the land of the Hittites. Then they went to Dan and they continued west to Sidon. 7 Then they went south to Tyre, a strong city with walls around it. They went to all the towns of the Hivites and the Canaanites. Then they arrived at Beersheba in the south part of Judah.
8 In that way, they travelled through the whole country. After nine months and 20 days they returned to Jerusalem.
9 Joab reported to the king about the number of soldiers who could fight. There were 800,000 men in Israel who could use a sword to fight. There were also 500,000 soldiers in Judah.
The Lord punishes David
10 David had counted the men who were able to fight in his army. But now he was sorry that he had done it. He said to the Lord, ‘What I have done was a bad sin. Please forgive me, Lord. I have done a foolish thing.’
11 While David slept that night, the Lord gave a message to Gad, David's prophet. 12 The Lord told him, ‘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.” ’
13 So when David woke up, Gad went to him and he said, ‘You may choose to have three years when there will be a famine in the whole country. Or you may choose to have three months when your enemies are chasing after you. Or you may choose to have three days of very bad disease in the whole country. Now think carefully and decide. I will take your answer to God, who sent me with this message.’
14 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 would be better for him to punish me.’
15 So, from that morning, the Lord caused a bad disease to kill people in Israel. It continued for three days, as the Lord had said. 70,000 Israelite men died in that time, in the whole country, from Dan to Beersheba. 16 The Lord's angel was ready to destroy Jerusalem. But the Lord decided to stop the trouble that he was causing for the people. 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.
17 David saw the angel who was killing the people. So he said to the Lord, ‘I am the person who has done an evil thing. These people have followed me like sheep that follow a shepherd. They have not done anything wrong. You should only punish me and my family.’
David builds an altar
18 That day, Gad went to David. He said to David, ‘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 When Araunah looked, he saw the king and his officers. They were coming towards him. So he went out and he bent down low in front of the king, with his face towards the ground.
21 Araunah said, ‘My lord the king, why have you come here to me, your servant?’
David replied, ‘I have come to buy your 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.’
22 Araunah said to David, ‘My lord the king, take anything that you would like to offer to the Lord. You can take these oxen to offer as sacrifices. You can use the wood from these tools and yokes to make a fire. 23 I will give all these things to you sir, my lord the king.’
Araunah also said to the king, ‘I pray that the Lord your God will accept your offerings.’
24 But the king said to Araunah, ‘No, I must pay you for it. I will not burn as an offering to the Lord my God any sacrifice that costs me nothing.’
So David bought Araunah's threshing floor and his oxen for 50 silver coins. 25 Then he built an altar there to worship the Lord. He made burnt offerings and friendship offerings on the altar.
Then the Lord answered David's prayer. The disease stopped killing people in Israel.
The Lord punishes the Israelites
21 Then Satan caused David to bring trouble to Israel.[a] 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.
David prepares to build God's temple
22 Then David said, ‘This is the place where the temple of the Lord God will be. The altar for Israel's burnt offerings will also be here.’
2 So David told his officers to bring together all the foreign men who lived in Israel. He chose some of them to cut the stones to build God's house. They would cut the stones to have the right shape. 3 He supplied a lot of iron to make things for the temple. That was for nails and bars to fix the doors at the entrances. He also supplied more bronze than they could weigh. 4 The people from Tyre and Sidon had brought a lot of cedar wood to David. So he provided for the temple more pieces of cedar wood than anyone could count.
5 David said, ‘The Lord's temple must be great and beautiful. It must be famous, so that the people of every nation see how great it is. My son Solomon is young and he has no special skills. So I must prepare everything for him to build the temple.’
So before David died, he prepared all these things.
David tells Solomon to build the temple
6 David sent someone to fetch his son, Solomon. He told him that he must build a temple for the Lord, Israel's God. 7 He said to Solomon, ‘My son, I really wanted to build a house for the Lord my God, to give honour to him. 8 But the Lord said to me, “You have killed many people in the battles that you have fought. So you yourself will not build a house to give me honour. I have seen all the blood of the people that you have killed. 9 But you will have a son who will be a man who lives in peace. I will cause all his enemies to leave him in peace. Yes, his name will be Solomon. While he is king, I will cause Israel to enjoy peace. I will keep them safe from their enemies.[b] 10 He will build a temple to give honour to my name. He will become my son and I will become his father. I will give him descendants to rule Israel as kings for ever.”
11 So, my son, I pray that the Lord will be with you. He will do what he has promised. He will help you to build a temple for the Lord your God. 12 I also pray that the Lord will make you wise so that you understand things properly. I pray that you will obey the Law of the Lord your God as you rule over Israel. 13 You will be successful, if you carefully obey the Lord's commands and rules. Those are the laws that the Lord gave to Moses for Israel. Be strong! Be brave! Do not be afraid, but continue to be strong!
14 Look! I have been careful to prepare the things that you will need to build the Lord's temple. I have got 4,000 tons of gold and 40,000 tons of silver. I have more bronze and iron than anyone can weigh. I have plenty of wood and stone. You will need to get even more than this. 15 You have many workers with special skills. Some know how to cut stone. Others know how to build with stones or with wood. There are men who have skills to make many different kinds of things. 16 They can use gold, silver, bronze and iron to make things. You have more workers than you can count! So now you must start the work! I pray that the Lord will be with you to help you.’
17 Then David sent messages to all the leaders in Israel. He commanded them to help his son Solomon. 18 He said to them, ‘You know that the Lord your God is with you. He has kept you safe from all your enemies. He has put the people who live in this region under my authority. So now the Lord and his people rule over all those nations. 19 So you must serve the Lord your God with all that you are. Start the work! Begin to build the Lord God's holy place. Then you can put the Lord's Covenant Box there, as well as the other holy things. You will put them in the temple that you have built to give honour to the Lord's name.’
David wrote this song. He asks God to bless the Temple.
Thank you, Lord[a]
30 Lord, I will praise you,
because you have saved me from death.
You have not let my enemies laugh at me.
2 Lord, my God, I called to you for help,
and you have made me well again.
3 Lord, you pulled me up
out of the deep hole of death.
You saved me
from among those who are going into the grave.
4 Sing to the Lord,
you people who trust him.
Praise his holy name.
5 His anger continues only for a moment,
but he is kind to us for our whole life.
You may be sad all through the night,
but in the morning, you will be happy again.[b]
6 When I was feeling safe and strong,
I thought, ‘Nothing can ever destroy me.’
7 But Lord, it was you who made my kingdom strong,
because you are so kind.
But then you turned away from me,
and I became very afraid.[c]
8 I called to you for help, Lord.
I asked you to be kind to me, my Lord.
9 If I go down into the deep hole of death,
that will not help you!
My dead body cannot praise you there!
It cannot tell people to trust you!
10 Lord, please listen to me!
Please be kind to me!
Lord, please be my helper!
11 Now you have caused me to stop crying,
so that I dance instead!
I do not need to wear sackcloth,
because I am no longer sad.
Instead, you have made me very happy.[d]
12 So I am truly happy and I will sing to praise you.
I cannot stay quiet!
Lord, my God,
I will continue to thank you for ever.
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