CHAPTER 21

¹And Satan stood up against Israel, and he incited David to take a count of Israel. ²And David said to Joab and the commanders of the troops, “Go, count Israel from Beersheba to Dan and bring to me that I may know their number.” ³And Joab said, “May the LORD add to the people a hundred times over. My lord the king, are they not all subjects of my lord? Why should my lord request this? Why should it be a cause of guilt in Israel?” ⁴But the king’s word prevailed over Joab, and Joab went out and went about through all Israel and came back to Jerusalem. ⁵And Joab gave the number of the census of the people to David: all Israel had one million one hundred thousand sword-wielding men and Judah four hundred seventy thousand sword wielders. ⁶But he did not record Levi and Benjamin among them, for the king’s command was repugnant to Joab. ⁷And it was evil in the eyes of God on account of this thing, and He struck Israel. ⁸And David said to God, “I have offended greatly in doing this thing. And now remit, pray, the guilt of your servant, for I have been very foolish.” ⁹And the LORD spoke to Gad, David’s seer, saying, ¹⁰“Go and speak to David, saying—thus says the LORD: Three things I have taken against you. Choose you one of them and I shall do it to you.” ¹¹And Gad came and said to David, “Thus said the LORD: Choose for yourself—¹²whether three years of famine or three months when you are swept away before your foes and the sword of your enemies overtakes you or three days during which the sword of the LORD and plague are in the land, and the LORD’S messenger destroys throughout the territory of Israel. And now, see what response I should bring back to my Sender.” ¹³And David said to Gad, “I am in great straits. Let me fall, pray, into the LORD’S hand, for very great is His mercy, and into the hand of man let me not fall.” ¹⁴And the LORD sent a plague against Israel, and seventy thousand men of Israel fell. ¹⁵And God sent a messenger to Jerusalem to destroy it, and as he destroyed, the LORD saw and regretted the evil and said to the messenger who was sowing destruction, “Enough! Now stay your hand.” And the LORD’S messenger was standing at the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite. ¹⁶And David raised his eyes and saw the LORD’S messenger standing between earth and the heavens with his sword unsheathed in his hand stretched out against Jerusalem, and David, and the elders with him, fell down, covered with sackcloth over their faces. ¹⁷And David said to God, “Was it not I who said to count the people, and it was I who offended and surely did wrong. And these sheep, what have they done? LORD, my God, let Your hand be against me and my father’s house, but against Your people let there be no plague.” ¹⁸And the LORD’S messenger had said to Gad to say to David that David should go up to set up an altar on the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite. ¹⁹And David went up by the word of God that he had spoken in the name of the LORD. ²⁰And Ornan turned back and saw the messenger, and his four sons with him were hiding, and Ornan had been threshing wheat. ²¹And David came to Ornan, and Ornan looked and saw David and went out from the threshing floor and bowed down to David, his face to the ground. ²²And David said to Ornan, “Give me the site of the threshing floor that I may build upon it an altar to the LORD. Give it to me at the full price, that the plague be pulled back from the people.” ²³And Ornan said to David, “Take it, and let my lord the king do what is right in his eyes. See, I give you the oxen for burnt offerngs and the threshing boards for wood and the wheat for grain offering. I give everything.” ²⁴And King David said to Ornan, “No, for I will surely buy it at the full price. For I will not present what is yours to the LORD or offer up burnt offerings at no cost.” ²⁵And David gave Ornan for the site six hundred weight of gold shekels. ²⁶And David built there an altar to the LORD and offered up burnt offerings and well-being sacrifices and called out to the LORD. And He answered him with fire from the heavens on the altar of burnt offerings. ²⁷And the LORD spoke to the messenger, and he put his sword back in its sheath. ²⁸At that time, when David saw that the LORD had answered him at the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite, he sacrificed there. ²⁹And the tabernacle of the LORD that Moses had made in the wilderness and the altar for burnt offerings and well-being sacrifices were at that time at Gibeon. ³⁰And David was unable to go to it to seek God, for he was terrified by the sword of the LORD’S messenger. ^22:1And David said, “This is the house of the LORD God, and this is the altar of burnt offering for Israel.”