1And Satan stood up against Israel, and moved David to number Israel. 2And 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. 3And Joab said, May Yehovah make his people a hundred times as many as they are: but, my lord the king, are they not all my lord’s servants? Why does my lord require this thing? Why will he be a cause of guilt to Israel? 4Nevertheless the king’s word prevailed against Joab. Therefore Joab departed, and went throughout all Israel, and came to Jerusalem. 5And Joab gave the sum of the numbering of the people to David. And all those of Israel were a million and a hundred thousand men who drew sword: and Judah was four hundred and seventy thousand men who drew sword. 6But he did not count Levi and Benjamin among them; for the king’s word was abominable to Joab. 7And God was displeased with this thing; therefore he struck Israel. 8And David said to God, I have sinned greatly, in that I have done this thing: but now, put away, I beg you, the iniquity of your servant; for I have done very foolishly. 9And Yehovah spoke to Gad, David’s seer, saying, 10Go and speak to David, saying, Thus says Yehovah, I offer you three things: choose one of them, that I may do it to you. 11So Gad came to David, and said to him, Thus says Yehovah, Take whichever you will: 12either three years of famine; or three months to be consumed before your foes, while the sword of your enemies overtakes you; or else three days the sword of Yehovah, even pestilence in the land, and the angel of Yehovah destroying throughout all the borders of Israel. Now therefore consider what answer I shall return to him who sent me. 13And David said to Gad, I am in great distress: let me fall, I pray, into the hand of Yehovah; for very great are his mercies: and do not let me fall into the hand of man. 14So Yehovah sent a pestilence upon Israel; and seventy thousand men of Israel fell. 15And God sent an angel to Jerusalem to destroy it: and as he was about to destroy, Yehovah looked, and he relented of the evil, and said to the destroying angel, It is enough; now stay your hand. And the angel of Yehovah was standing by the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite. 16And David lifted up his eyes, and saw the angel of Yehovah 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 upon their faces. 17And 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 Yehovah my God, be against me, and against my father’s house; but not against your people, that they should be plagued. 18Then the angel of Yehovah commanded Gad to say to David, that David should go up, and raise an altar to Yehovah on the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite. 19And David went up at the saying of Gad, which he spoke in the name of Yehovah. 20And Ornan turned back, and saw the angel; and his four sons who were with him hid themselves. Now Ornan was threshing wheat. 21And 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. 22Then David said to Ornan, Give me the place of this threshing floor, that I may build on it an altar to Yehovah: for the full price you shall give it to me, that the plague may be stayed from the people. 23And Ornan said to David, Take it for yourself, and let my lord the king do what 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. 24And king David said to Ornan, No; but I will truly buy it for the full price: for I will not take what is yours for Yehovah, nor offer a burnt-offering without cost. 25So David gave to Ornan for the place six hundred shekels of gold by weight. 26And David built there an altar to Yehovah, and offered burnt-offerings and peace-offerings, and called upon Yehovah; and he answered him from heaven by fire upon the altar of burnt-offering. 27And Yehovah commanded the angel; and he put his sword back into its sheath. 28At that time, when David saw that Yehovah had answered him on the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite, then he sacrificed there. 29For the tabernacle of Yehovah, which Moses made in the wilderness, and the altar of burnt-offering, were at that time in the high place at Gibeon. 30But David could not go before it to inquire of God; for he was afraid because of the sword of the angel of Yehovah.