The First Book of Chronicles (WEB)
21: 1Satan stood up against Israel, and moved David to number Israel. 21:2David 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. 21:3Joab 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? 21:4Nevertheless the king's word prevailed against
Joab. Therefore Joab departed, and went throughout all Israel, and came to Jerusalem. 21:5Joab 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. 21:6But he didn't count Levi and Benjamin among them; for the king's word was
abominable to Joab. 21:7God was displeased with this thing; therefore he struck Israel. 21:8David 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. 21:9Yahweh spoke to Gad, David's seer,
saying, 21:10Go 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. 21:11So Gad came to David, and said to him, Thus says
Yahweh, Take which you will: 21:12either 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. 21:13David
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. 21:14So Yahweh sent a pestilence on Israel;
and there fell of Israel seventy thousand men. 21:15God 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. 21:16David 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. 21:17David 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. 21:18Then 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. 21:19David went up at the
saying of Gad, which he spoke in the name of Yahweh. 21:20Ornan turned back, and saw the angel;
and his four sons who were with him hid themselves. Now Ornan was threshing wheat. 21:21As
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. 21:22Then 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. 21:23Ornan 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. 21:24King 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. 21:25So David
gave to Ornan for the place six hundred shekels of gold by weight. 21:26David 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. 21:27Yahweh commanded the angel; and he
put up his sword again into the sheath of it. 21:28At that time, when David saw that Yahweh had
answered him in the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite, then he sacrificed there. 21:29For 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. 21:30But 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