21:1  Satan stood up against Israel, and moved David to number Israel.

21:2  David said to Joab and to the princes of the people, Go, number Israel from Beersheba even to Dan; and bring me word, that I may know the sum of them.

21:3  Joab said, Yahweh make his people a hundred times as many as they are: but, my lord the king, aren't they all my lord's servants? 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  Joab gave up the sum of the numbering of the people to David. All those of Israel were one million one hundred thousand men who drew sword: and in Judah were four hundred seventy thousand men who drew sword.

21:6  But he didn't count Levi and Benjamin among them; for the king's word was abominable to Joab.

21:7  God was displeased with this thing; therefore he struck Israel.

21:8  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.

21:9  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 you 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 else 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 shall return to him who sent me.

21:13  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 let me not 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  God sent an angel to Jerusalem to destroy it: and as he was about to destroy, Yahweh saw, and he repented him of the evil, and said to the destroying angel, It is enough; now stay your hand. The angel of Yahweh was standing by the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite.

21:16  David lifted up his eyes, and saw the angel of Yahweh standing between earth and the sky, 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  David said to God, Isn't it I who commanded the people to be numbered? It is even I who have sinned and done very wickedly; but these sheep, what have they done? Please let your hand, 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 tell David, that David should go up, and raise an altar to Yahweh in the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite.

21:19  David went up at the saying of Gad, which he spoke in the name of Yahweh.

21:20  Ornan turned back, and saw the angel; and his four sons who were with him hid themselves. Now Ornan was threshing wheat.

21:21  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 thereon an altar to Yahweh: for the full price shall you give it me, that the plague may be stayed from the people.

21:23  Ornan said to David, Take it to you, and let my lord the king do that which is good in his eyes: behold, 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  King David said to Ornan, No; but I will most assuredly buy it for the full price: for I will not take that which is your 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  David built there an altar to Yahweh, and offered burnt offerings and peace-offerings, and called on Yahweh; and he answered him from the sky by fire on the altar of burnt offering.

21:27  Yahweh commanded the angel; and he put up his sword again into the sheath of it.

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 tent 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 couldn't go before it to inquire of God; for he was afraid because of the sword of the angel of Yahweh.