I Chronicles 21 David Numbers the People, and God Punishes Them

 I Chronicles 21

David Numbers the People, and God Punishes Them

1 Then Satan stood up against Israel, and moved David to number Israel.

2 Then David said to Joab and the princes of the people, "Go, number Israel from Beersheba to Dan, and bring me the number, that I may know their number."

3 Then Joab said, "May the Lord add to his people a hundredfold; are they not all my lord's servants, my lord the king? For that would be a crime against Israel."

4 But the king's word prevailed against Joab, and Joab went out and passed through all Israel, and returned to Jerusalem.

5 And Joab gave David the sum of the number of the people: in all Israel, one million and one hundred men who drew swords; and in Judah, four hundred and seventy thousand men who drew swords. 6 But he did not count Levi and Benjamin among them, because the king's word was abominable to Joab.

7 And the matter displeased God, and he smote Israel.

8 Then David said to God, "I have sinned greatly in doing this thing; but now let it please you to take away the iniquity of your servant, for I have acted very foolishly."

9 Then the Lord spoke to Gad, David's seer, saying,

10 "Go and tell David, saying, 'Thus says the Lord: I propose three things to you; choose one of them, and I will do it for you.' 

11 Then Gad came to David and said to him, “Thus says the Lord: Choose for yourself, 

12 either three years of famine, or three months of wasting time before your adversaries, with the sword of your enemies overtaking you, or three days of the sword of the Lord, even pestilence in the land, and the angel of the Lord destroying all the territory of Israel. Now therefore, consider what answer I will give to him who sent me.” 

13 Then David said to Gad, “I am in great distress; let me fall into the hand of the Lord, for his mercy is very great; but let me not fall into the hand of man.” 

14 So the Lord sent a pestilence on Israel, and seventy thousand men fell of Israel. 

15 Then the Lord sent an angel to Jerusalem to destroy it. When he destroyed it, the Lord saw it and repented of the evil, and said to the destroying angel, “It is enough; now withdraw your hand.” Now the angel of the Lord stood by the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite.

16 Then David lifted up his eyes and saw the angel of the Lord standing between heaven and earth, with a drawn sword in his hand stretched out over Jerusalem. Then David and the elders, covered with sackcloth, fell on their faces.

17 Then David said to God, “Did I not say that the people should be numbered? I myself have sinned and done very badly. But what have these sheep done? O Lord my God, let your hand be against me and against my father’s house, and not against your people.”

18 Then the angel of the Lord said to Gad, “Tell David to go up and build an altar to the Lord on the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite.”

19 So David went up, according to the word of Gad, which he had spoken in the name of the Lord.

20 Then Ornan turned and saw the angel, and his four sons hid with him, while Ornan was threshing wheat.

21 Then David came to Ornan. Ornan looked and saw David, and he went out of the threshing floor and bowed down before David with his face to the ground.

22 Then David said to Ornan, "Give me this place of the threshing floor, that I may build an altar there to the Lord; give it to me for its price, that this punishment may be stayed from the people."

23 Then Ornan said to David, "Take it for yourself, and let my lord the king do with it what seems good to him. See, I give the oxen for burnt offerings, and the threshing sledges for wood, and the wheat for a grain offering; I give it all."

24 Then King David said to Ornan, "No, but I will buy it for its price; for I will not take what is yours for the Lord, lest you offer a burnt offering without cost."

25 And David gave Ornan six hundred shekels of gold for the place. 

26 Then David built an altar there to the Lord and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings on it. He called on the Lord, and the Lord answered him with fire from heaven on the altar of burnt offering. 

27 Then the Lord commanded the angel, and he put his sword back into its sheath. 

28 At that time, when David saw that the Lord had answered him at the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite, he sacrificed there. 

29 For the tabernacle of the Lord, which Moses had made in the wilderness, and the altar and the burnt offering, were at that time on the high place of Gibeon. 

30 But David could not go there to inquire of the Lord, because he was terrified because of the sword of the angel of the Lord.