1 Chronicles 21

¹ And there stands up an adversary against Israel, and persuades David to number Israel, ² And David said unto Joab, and unto the heads of the people, "Go, number Israel from Beer-Sheba even unto Dan, and bring unto me, and I know their number." ³ And Joab said, "Yahweh does add to His people as they are a hundred times; are they not, my lord, O king, all of them to my lord for servants? why does my lord seek this? why is he for a cause of guilt to Israel?" ⁴ And the word of the king [is] severe against Joab, and Joab goes out, and goes up and down in all Israel, and comes in to Jerusalem. ⁵ And Joab gives the account of the numbering of the people unto David, and all Israel is a thousand thousand and a hundred thousand, each drawing sword, and Judah [is] four hundred and seventy thousand, each drawing sword. ⁶ And Levi and Benjamin he has not numbered in their midst, for the word of the king was abominable with Joab. ⁷ And it is evil in the eyes of Elohim concerning this thing, and He smites Israel, ⁸ and David said unto Elohim, "I have sinned exceedingly, in that I have done this thing; and now, cause to pass away, I pray You, the iniquity of Your servant, for I have acted very foolishly." ⁹ And Yahweh speaks unto Gad, seer of David, saying. ¹⁰ "Go, and you have spoken unto David, saying, Thus said Yahweh, Three - I am stretching out unto you; choose for you one of these, and I do [it] to you." ¹¹ And Gad comes in unto David, and said to him, "Thus said Yahweh, Take for you ¹² either for three years - famine, or three months to be consumed from the face of your adversaries, even the sword of your enemies to overtake, or three days the sword of Yahweh, even pestilence in the land, and a messenger of Yahweh destroying in all the border of Israel; and now, see; what word do I return to Him who is sending me?" ¹³ And David said unto Gad, "I am greatly distressed, let me fall, I pray you, into the hand of Yahweh, for very many [are] His mercies, and into the hand of man let me not fall." ¹⁴ And Yahweh gives a pestilence in Israel, and there fall of Israel seventy thousand men, ¹⁵ and Elohim sends a messenger to Jerusalem to destroy it, and as he is destroying Yahweh has seen, and is comforted concerning the evil, and said to the messenger who [is] destroying, "Enough, now, cease your hand." And the messenger of Yahweh is standing by the threshing-floor of Ornan the Jebusite, ¹⁶ and David lifts up his eyes, and sees the messenger of Yahweh standing between the earth and the heavens, and his sword drawn in his hand, stretched out over Jerusalem, and David falls, and the elders, covered with sackcloth, on their faces. ¹⁷ And David said unto Elohim, "Did not I - I say to number the people? Yea, I it [is] who have sinned, and done great evil: and these, the flock, what did they? O Yahweh, my Elohim, let, I pray You, Your hand be on me, and on the house of my father, and not on Your people - to be plagued." ¹⁸ And the messenger of Yahweh spoke unto Gad, saying for David, "Surely David does go up to raise an altar to Yahweh in the threshing-floor of Ornan the Jebusite." ¹⁹ And David goes up by the word of Gad, that he spoke in the name of Yahweh. ²⁰ And Ornan turns back, and sees the messenger, and his four sons [are] with him, hiding themselves, and Ornan is threshing wheat. ²¹ And David comes in unto Ornan, and Ornan looks attentively, and sees David, and goes out from the threshing-floor, and bows himself to David - face to the earth. ²² And David said unto Ornan, "Give to me the place of the threshing-floor, and I build in it an altar to Yahweh; for full silver give it to me, and the plague is restrained from the people." ²³ And Ornan said unto David, "Take to you - and my lord the king does that which is good in his eyes: see, I have given the oxen for burnt-offerings, and the threshing instruments for wood, and the wheat for a present; the whole I have given." ²⁴ And king David said to Ornan, "Nay, for I surely buy for full silver; for I do not lift up that which is your to Yahweh, so as to offer a burnt-offering without cost." ²⁵ And David gives to Ornan for the place shekels of gold [in] weight six hundred; ²⁶ and David builds there an altar to Yahweh, and offers burnt-offerings and peace-offerings, and calls unto Yahweh, and He answers him with fire from the heavens on the altar of the burnt-offering. ²⁷ And Yahweh said to the messenger, and he turns back his sword unto its sheath. ²⁸ At that time when David sees that Yahweh has answered him in the threshing-floor of Ornan the Jebusite, then he sacrifices there; ²⁹ and the tabernacle of Yahweh that Moses made in the wilderness, and the altar of the burnt-offering, [are] at that time in a high place, in Gibeon; ³⁰ and David is not able to go before it to seek Elohim, for he has been afraid because of the sword of the messenger of Yahweh.