¹An adversary stood up against Israel and incited David to count Israel.

²David said to Joab and to the officials of the people, “Go, count Israel from Beer-sheba even to Dan, and bring it to me, so that I may know their number.”

³Joab said, “May Yahweh add to his people a hundred times as many as they are! Are they not, my lord the king, all of them my lord’s slaves? Why does my lord seek this? Why should it become guilt for Israel?”

⁴But the king’s word prevailed over Joab; so Joab went out and went about through all Israel and came to Jerusalem.

⁵Joab gave the number of the census of the people to David; and all Israel was a thousand thousands and a hundred thousand men who drew the sword, and Judah was four hundred and seventy thousand men who drew the sword.

⁶But Levi and Benjamin he did not muster in their midst, for the king’s word was abhorrent to Joab.

⁷It was displeasing in the eyes of God concerning this word, and he struck Israel.

⁸David said to God, I have sinned exceedingly in that I have done this word. And now, please let the guilt of your slave pass over, for I have acted foolishly, exceedingly.

⁹Yahweh spoke to Gad, the seer of David, saying,

¹⁰Go and speak to David, saying, Like this Yahweh says: Three things I am stretching out over you; choose for yourself one of them, and I will do it to you.

¹¹So Gad came to David and said to him, Like this Yahweh says: Accept for yourself:

¹²Either three years of famine, or three months being swept away from the face of your opponents while the sword of your enemies overtakes you, or three days of the sword of Yahweh, pestilence in the land, and the messenger of Yahweh ruining in all the territory of Israel. And now see what word I shall bring back to the one who sent me.

¹³David said to Gad, I am in an exceedingly tight place. Let me fall, please, into the hand of Yahweh, for his compassions are exceedingly great; but into the hand of man let me not fall.

¹⁴So Yahweh set a pestilence on Israel, and seventy thousand men of Israel fell.

¹⁵God sent a messenger to Jerusalem to ruin it; and as he was ruining, Yahweh saw, and was sorry over the calamity, and said to the messenger who was ruining, Enough! Now let your hand drop. And the messenger of Yahweh was standing near the threshing-floor of Ornan the Jebusite.

¹⁶David lifted up his eyes and saw the messenger of Yahweh standing between the land and the skies, with his sword drawn in his hand, stretched out over Jerusalem. Then David and the elders, covered in sackcloth, fell on their faces.

¹⁷David said to God, Is it not I who said to count the people? And I am the one, the shepherd, who has sinned and indeed done harm; but these sheep, what have they made? Yahweh my God, please let your hand be on me and on my father's house, but not on your people for a plague.

¹⁸And the messenger of Yahweh said to Gad to say to David that David should go up to raise an altar to Yahweh on the threshing-floor of Ornan the Jebusite.

¹⁹So David went up at the word of Gad, which he had spoken in the name of Yahweh.

²⁰Ornan turned back and saw the messenger, and his four sons with him hid themselves; and Ornan was threshing wheat.

²¹As David came to Ornan, Ornan looked and saw David, and went out from the threshing-floor and bowed down to David, face to the land.

²²David said to Ornan, Give me the place of the threshing-floor, that I may build an altar on it to Yahweh; for full silver give it to me, that the plague may be restrained from over the people.

²³Ornan said to David, Take it for yourself, and let my lord the king do what is good in his eyes. See, I give the cattle for the burnt offerings, and the threshing-sledges for the wood, and the wheat for the grain offering; all of it I give.

²⁴King David said to Ornan, No, but I will indeed acquire it for full silver, for I will not take what is yours for Yahweh, or bring up a burnt offering for nothing.

²⁵So David gave Ornan six hundred shekels of gold by weight for the place.

²⁶David built there an altar to Yahweh, and brought up burnt offerings and peace offerings, and called out to Yahweh; and he answered him by fire from the skies on the altar of the burnt offering.

²⁷Then Yahweh said to the messenger, and he returned his sword to its sheath.

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

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

³⁰And David could not go before it to inquire of God, for he was terrified from the face of the sword of the messenger of Yahweh.