1 Satan stood up against Israel, and moved David to number Israel.
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. 3 Joab said, 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?
4 Nevertheless the king’s word prevailed against Joab. Therefore Joab
departed, and went throughout all Israel, and came to Jerusalem. 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. 6 But he didn’t count
Levi and Benjamin among them; for the king’s word was abominable to Joab.
7 God was displeased with this thing; therefore he struck Israel.
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. 9 Yahweh spoke to Gad, David’s seer, saying, 10 Go
and speak to David, saying, Thus says Yahweh, I offer you three things:
choose you one of them, that I may do it to you. 11 So Gad came to David,
and said to him, Thus says Yahweh, Take which you will: 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. 13 David said to Gad, I am in a great strait: let me
fall, I pray, into the hand of Yahweh; for very great are his mercies: and
let me not fall into the hand of man. 14 So Yahweh sent a pestilence on
Israel; and there fell of Israel seventy thousand men. 15 God sent an
angel to Jerusalem to destroy it: and as he was about to destroy, Yahweh saw,
and he repented him of the evil, 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. 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. 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. 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. 19 David
went up at the saying of Gad, which he spoke in the name of Yahweh.
20 Ornan turned back, and saw the angel; and his four sons who were with
him hid themselves. Now Ornan was threshing wheat. 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. 22 Then David said to
Ornan, Give me the place of this threshing floor, that I may build thereon an
altar to Yahweh: for the full price shall you give it me, that the plague may
be stayed from the people. 23 Ornan said to David, Take it to you, and let
my lord the king do that which is good in his eyes: behold, I give
you the oxen for burnt offerings, and the threshing instruments for
wood, and the wheat for the meal-offering; I give it all. 24 King David
said to Ornan, No; but I will most assuredly buy it for the full price: for I
will not take that which is your for Yahweh, nor offer a burnt-offering
without cost. 25 So David gave to Ornan for the place six hundred shekels
of gold by weight. 26 David built there an altar to Yahweh, 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. 27 Yahweh
commanded the angel; and he put up his sword again into the sheath of it.
28 At that time, when David saw that Yahweh had answered him in the
threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite, then he sacrificed there. 29 For
the tent of Yahweh, which Moses made in the wilderness, and the altar of
burnt offering, were at that time in the high place at Gibeon. 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.
World English Bible - Public Domain |
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