David Forces a Census
1 Satan stood up against Israel and moved David to take a census of Israel. 2 David said to Joab and to the rulers of the people, “Go, count Israel from Beersheba to Dan and bring me word that I may know how many there are.”
3 Joab said, “May the Lord multiply his people a hundred times over. My lord the king, are they not all servants of my lord? Why does my lord require this thing? Why should it bring guilt on Israel?”
4 Nevertheless the king’s word prevailed against Joab. Therefore Joab departed and went throughout all Israel, then came to Jerusalem. 5 Joab gave up the sum of the census of the people to David. All those of Israel were 1,100,000 swordsmen, and in Judah were 470,000 swordsmen. 6 But he did not count Levi and Benjamin’s tribes among them, for the king’s word was abominable to Joab.
David’s Repentance Spares Jerusalem
7 The Lord was displeased with this, therefore he struck Israel. 8 David said to the Lord, “I have sinned greatly, in that I have done this thing. But now take away, I beg you, the iniquity of your servant, for I have acted very foolishly.”
9 The Lord spoke to Gad, David’s seer, saying, 10 “Go and speak to David, saying, ‘The Lord says: I am offering you three things. Choose one of them, that I may do it to you.’ ”
11 So Gad came to David and said to him, “The Lord says, ‘Make your choice: 12 either three years of famine or three months of destruction by your enemies while the sword of your enemies overtakes you, or else three days of the sword of the Lord with pestilence in the land and the angel of the Lord 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 the hand of the Lord, for his mercies are very great. Don’t let me fall into the hands of man.’”
14 So the Lord sent a pestilence on Israel, and 70,000 men of Israel fell. 15 The Lord sent an angel to Jerusalem to destroy it. As he was destroying, the Lord saw, and he relented of the disaster and said to the destroying angel, “It is enough. Now withdraw your hand.” The angel of the Lord was standing by the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite.
16 David looked up and saw the angel of the Lord standing between the earth and 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 the Lord, “Isn’t it I who commanded the people to be counted? It is I who have sinned and acted very wickedly, but these sheep, what have they done? Please let your hand, O Lord my God, be against me and against my father’s house but not against your people that they should be plagued.”
David Builds an Alter
18 Then the angel of the Lord commanded Gad to tell David that David should go up and raise an altar to the Lord on the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite. 19 David went up, at the word of Gad, which he spoke in the name of the Lord.
20 Ornan was threshing wheat when he turned back and saw the angel, and his four sons who were with him hid themselves. 21 As David approached Ornan, Ornan looked and saw David and left the threshing floor and bowed to David with his face to the ground.
22 Then David said to Ornan, “Give me the place of this threshing floor, that I may build an altar to the Lord on it. You shall sell it to me for the full price, that the plague may be stopped from afflicting the people.”
23 Ornan said to David, “Take it for yourself and let my lord the king do that which is good in his eyes. I give the oxen for burnt offerings and the threshing instruments for wood and the wheat for the grain offering. I give all of it.”
24 King David said to Ornan, “No. I will most certainly buy it for the full price. For I will not take that which is yours for the Lord, nor offer a burnt offering that costs me nothing.”
25 So David gave to Ornan 600 pieces of gold by weight for the place. 26 David built an altar to the Lord there and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings and called on the Lord, and he answered him from the sky by fire on the altar of burnt offering.
27 Then the Lord commanded the angel, and he put his sword back into its sheath. 28 At that time, when David saw that the Lord had answered him in the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite, then he sacrificed there. 29 For the Lord’s tabernacle, which Moses made in the wilderness and the altar of burnt offering were at that time in the high place at Gibeon. 30 But David could not go before it to inquire of the Lord, for he was afraid because of the sword of the angel of the Lord.