1 Once more David assembled all the picked men of Israel, thirty thousand.
2 David set out with all the people who were with him from Baale-judah, to bring up from there the ark of God, which is called by the name, the name of the LORD of hosts, who sits enthroned above the cherubim.
3 They loaded the ark of God onto a new cart and brought it out of Abinadab's house on the hill, with Uzzah and Ahio, Abinadab's sons, guiding the new cart.
4 They brought it out of Abinadab's house on the hill with the ark of God, and Ahio was going ahead of the ark.
5 David and the whole house of Israel were making merry before the LORD with all sorts of instruments of cypress wood: lyres, harps, tambourines, rattles and cymbals.
6 When they reached the threshing floor of Nacon, Uzzah reached out to the ark of God and grabbed it, because the oxen had stumbled.
7 The LORD's anger blazed against Uzzah, and God struck him there for his error; he died there beside the ark of God.
8 David was angry that the LORD had burst out against Uzzah, and the place has been called Perez-uzzah to this day.
9 That day David was afraid of the LORD, and he said, "How can the ark of the LORD come to me?"
10 So David would not take the ark of the LORD to be with him in the City of David; instead David turned it aside to the house of Obed-edom the Gittite.
11 The ark of the LORD stayed in the house of Obed-edom the Gittite for three months, and the LORD blessed Obed-edom and his whole household.
12 King David was told, "The LORD has blessed Obed-edom's household and all that he has because of the ark of God." So David went and brought the ark of God up from Obed-edom's house to the City of David with celebration.
13 When the bearers of the ark of the LORD had gone six steps, he sacrificed an ox and a fatling.
14 David danced before the LORD with all his strength, wearing a linen ephod.
15 So David and the whole house of Israel brought up the ark of the LORD with shouts and the sound of the horn.
16 As the ark of the LORD entered the City of David, Michal, Saul's daughter, looked out of the window and saw King David leaping and whirling before the LORD, and in her heart she despised him.
17 They brought in the ark of the LORD and set it up in its place in the tent David had pitched for it, and David offered burnt offerings and peace offerings before the LORD.
18 When David had finished offering the burnt offerings and peace offerings, he blessed the people in the name of the LORD of hosts.
19 He handed out to all the people, the whole crowd of Israel, men and women alike, a ring of bread, a portion of meat and a raisin cake each. Then all the people went off, each to his home.
20 David went back to bless his household, and Michal, Saul's daughter, came out to meet him. "How the king of Israel has distinguished himself today," she said, "exposing himself today before the eyes of his servants' slave girls, as some vulgar fellow would shamelessly expose himself!"
21 David told Michal, "It was before the LORD, who chose me over your father and over all his house and appointed me leader over the LORD's people, over Israel. I will make merry before the LORD.
22 I will make myself even more contemptible than this and be low in my own eyes. But by the slave girls you spoke of, by them I will be held in honor."
23 And Michal, Saul's daughter, had no child to the day she died.