1 Satan rose up against Israel and stirred David up to count Israel.
2 David told Joab and the leaders of the people, "Go and count Israel from Beersheba as far as Dan, and report to me so that I may know how many they are."
3 Joab replied, "May the LORD multiply his people a hundred times over! But my lord the king, are they not all servants of my lord? Why does my lord want this? Why should he bring guilt on Israel?"
4 Yet the king's word overruled Joab. So Joab left, traveled through all Israel, and returned to Jerusalem.
5 Joab reported to David the number from the census of the people: all Israel had one million one hundred thousand swordsmen, and Judah four hundred and seventy thousand swordsmen.
6 Levi and Benjamin, however, he did not count among them, because the king's order was repugnant to Joab.
7 This thing was evil in God's sight, and he struck Israel.
8 David said to God, "I have committed a great sin by doing this. Now, I beg you, remove the guilt of your servant, for I have been very foolish."
9 The LORD spoke to Gad, David's seer:
10 "Go and tell David, 'This is what the LORD says: I am setting three things before you. Choose one of them, and I will do it to you.'"
11 Gad went to David and told him, "This is what the LORD says: 'Choose for yourself:
12 three years of famine; or three months of being destroyed by your adversaries, with your enemies' sword catching up with you; or three days of the LORD's sword, plague in the land, with the angel of the LORD bringing destruction through all Israel's territory.' Now decide what reply I should take back to the one who sent me."
13 David told Gad, "I am in a terrible strait. Let me fall into the LORD's hand, because his compassion is very great; but do not let me fall into human hands."
14 So the LORD sent plague on Israel, and seventy thousand men from Israel died.
15 God sent an angel to Jerusalem to destroy it. But as he was destroying, the LORD saw and was grieved over the disaster, and he told the destroying angel, "That is enough! Now hold back your hand." The angel of the LORD was then standing at the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite.
16 David looked up and saw the angel of the LORD standing between the earth and the sky with a sword drawn in his hand, held out over Jerusalem. Then David and the elders, covered in sackcloth, fell face down.
17 David said to God, "Was it not I who ordered the people counted? I am the one who sinned and did terrible wrong. But these sheep, what have they done? LORD my God, please let your hand fall on me and my father's family, but do not let the plague be on your people."
18 The angel of the LORD then told Gad to say to David that David should go up and raise an altar to the LORD at the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite.
19 David went up at Gad's word, which he had spoken in the LORD's name.
20 Ornan, who was threshing wheat, turned around and saw the angel, and his four sons who were with him hid.
21 David came up to Ornan; Ornan looked and saw David, came out of the threshing floor, and bowed down to David, face to the ground.
22 David said to Ornan, "Let me have the place of this threshing floor so I can build an altar to the LORD on it; give it to me for its full price, so that the plague may be stopped from striking the people."
23 Ornan told David, "Take it; let my lord the king do whatever he thinks best. Look, I am giving the oxen for burnt offerings, the threshing boards for wood, and the wheat for a grain offering. I give everything."
24 King David answered Ornan, "No, I insist on buying it at the full price. I will not take what belongs to you for the LORD, or offer a burnt offering that costs nothing."
25 And David paid Ornan six hundred shekels of gold by weight for the place.
26 There David built an altar to the LORD and presented burnt offerings and peace offerings. He called on the LORD, and the LORD answered him by fire from heaven upon the altar of burnt offering.
27 The LORD then gave the angel the order, and he returned his sword to its sheath.
28 At that time, when David saw that the LORD had answered him at the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite, he offered sacrifices there.
29 The tabernacle of the LORD that Moses had made in the wilderness, and the altar of burnt offering, were at that time at the high place in Gibeon;
30 but David was unable to go before it to seek God, because he was terrified of the sword of the angel of the LORD.