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, �May 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 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 your choice:
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 distress. Let me fall, I pray, into the hand of Yahweh; for his mercies are very great. Let me not fall into the hand of man.�
21:14 So Yahweh sent a pestilence on Israel; and seventy thousand men of Israel fell.
21:15 God sent an angel to Jerusalem to destroy it. As he was about to destroy, Yahweh saw, and he relented of the disaster, 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. You shall sell it to me for the full price, that the plague may be stopped from afflicting the people.�
21:23 Ornan said to David, �Take it for yourself, and let my lord the king do that which is good in his eyes. Behold, I give 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 certainly buy it for the full price. 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 six hundred shekels of gold by weight for the place.
21:26 David built an altar to Yahweh there, 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 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 couldn�t go before it to inquire of God; for he was afraid because of the sword of the angel of Yahweh.
