21:1 And Satan stood up against Israel, and moved David to number Israel.
21:2 And David said to Joab and to the princes of the people, Go, number Israel from Beer-sheba even to Dan; and bring me word, that I may know the sum of them.
21:3 And Joab said, Yahweh make his people a hundred times as many as they are: but, my lord the king, are they not all my lord's slaves? Why does my lord require this thing? Why will he be a cause of guilt to Israel?
21:4 Nevertheless the king's word prevailed against Joab. Therefore Joab departed, and went throughout all Israel, and came to Jerusalem.
21:5 And Joab gave up the sum of the numbering of the people to David. And all those of Israel were a thousand thousand and a hundred thousand men who drew sword: and Judah was 470,000 men who drew sword.
21:6 But Levi and Benjamin he did not count among them; for the king's word was disgusting to Joab.
21:7 And God was displeased with this thing; therefore he struck Israel.
21:8 And David said to God, I have sinned greatly, in that I have done this thing: but now, put away, I urge you, the iniquity of your slave; for I have done very foolishly.
21:9 And Yahweh spoke to Gad, David's seer, saying,
21:10 Go and speak to David, saying, Thus says Yahweh, I offer you three things: choose for yourself one of them, that I may do it to you.
21:11 So Gad came to David, and said to him, Thus says Yahweh, Take which you will:
21:12 either three years of famine; or three months to be consumed before your foes, while the sword of your enemies overtakes you; or three days the sword of Yahweh, even pestilence in the land, and the angel of Yahweh destroying throughout all the borders of Israel. Now therefore consider what answer I will return to him who sent me.
21:13 And David said to Gad, I am in a great strait: let me fall, I pray, into the hand of Yahweh; for very great are his mercies: and don't let me fall into the hand of man.
21:14 So Yahweh sent a pestilence on Israel; and there fell of Israel seventy thousand men.
21:15 And God sent an angel to Jerusalem to destroy it: and as he was about to destroy, Yahweh looked, and he repented of the evil, and said to the destroying angel, It is enough; now let down your hand. And the angel of Yahweh was standing by the threshing-floor of Ornan the Jebusite.
21:16 And David lifted up his eyes, and saw the angel of Yahweh standing between earth and heaven, having a drawn sword in his hand stretched out over Jerusalem. Then David and the elders, clothed in sackcloth, fell on their faces.
21:17 And David said to God, Is it not I who commanded the people to be numbered? It is I who have sinned and done very wickedly; but these sheep, what have they done? Let your hand, I pray you, O Yahweh my God, be against me, and against my father's house; but not against your people, that they should be plagued.
21:18 Then the angel of Yahweh commanded Gad to say to David, that David should go up, and rear an altar to Yahweh in the threshing-floor of Ornan the Jebusite.
21:19 And David went up at the saying of Gad, which he spoke in the name of Yahweh.
21:20 And Ornan turned back, and saw the angel; and his four sons who were with him hid themselves. Now Ornan was threshing wheat.
21:21 And as David came to Ornan, Ornan looked and saw David, and went out of the threshing-floor, and bowed himself to David with his face to the ground.
21:22 Then David said to Ornan, Give me the place of this threshing-floor, that I may build on it an altar to Yahweh: for the full [price in] silver you will give it to me, that the plague may be stopped from the people.
21:23 And Ornan said to David, Take it for yourself, and let my lord the king do that which is good in his eyes: look, I give [you] the oxen for burnt-offerings, and the threshing instruments for wood, and the wheat for the meal-offering; I give it all.
21:24 And King David said to Ornan, No; but I will truly buy it for the full [price in] silver: for I will not take that which is yours for Yahweh, nor offer a burnt-offering without cost.
21:25 So David gave to Ornan for the place six hundred shekels of gold by weight.
21:26 And David built there an altar to Yahweh, and offered burnt-offerings and peace-offerings, and called on Yahweh; and he answered him from heaven by fire on the altar of burnt-offering.
21:27 And Yahweh commanded the angel; and he put up his sword again into its sheath.
21:28 At that time, when David saw that Yahweh had answered him in the threshing-floor of Ornan the Jebusite, then he sacrificed there.
21:29 For the tabernacle of Yahweh, which Moses made in the wilderness, and the altar of burnt-offering, were at that time in the high place at Gibeon.
21:30 But David could not go before it to inquire of God; for he was afraid because of the sword of the angel of Yahweh.