1 Crônicas 21

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

² And David said to Joab and to the princes of the people, Go, number Israel from Beer-sheba even to Dan; and bring me word, that I may know the sum of them.

³ And Joab said, Yahweh make his people a hundred times as many as they are: but, my lord the king, are they not all my lord's slaves? 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 And Joab gave up the sum of the numbering of the people to David. And all those of Israel were a thousand thousand and a hundred thousand men who drew sword: and Judah was 470,000 men who drew sword.

⁶ But Levi and Benjamin he did not count among them; for the king's word was disgusting to Joab.

⁷ And God was displeased with this thing; therefore he struck Israel.

⁸ And David said to God, I have sinned greatly, in that I have done this thing: but now, put away, I urge you, the iniquity of your slave; for I have done very foolishly.

⁹ And Yahweh spoke to Gad, David's seer, saying,

¹⁰ Go and speak to David, saying, Thus says Yahweh, I offer you three things: choose for yourself 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 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 will return to him who sent me.

¹³ And 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 don't let me fall into the hand of man.

¹⁴ So Yahweh sent a pestilence on Israel; and there fell of Israel seventy thousand men.

¹⁵ And God sent an angel to Jerusalem to destroy it: and as he was about to destroy, Yahweh looked, and he repented of the evil, and said to the destroying angel, It is enough; now let down your hand. And the angel of Yahweh was standing by the threshing-floor of Ornan the Jebusite.

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

¹⁷ And David said to God, Is it not I who commanded the people to be numbered? It is I who have sinned and done very wickedly; but these sheep, what have they done? Let your hand, I pray you, 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 say to David, that David should go up, and rear an altar to Yahweh in the threshing-floor of Ornan the Jebusite.

¹⁹ And David went up at the saying of Gad, which he spoke in the name of Yahweh.

²⁰ And Ornan turned back, and saw the angel; and his four sons who were with him hid themselves. Now Ornan was threshing wheat.

²¹ And 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 on it an altar to Yahweh: for the full price you will give it to me, that the plague may be stopped from the people.

²³ And Ornan said to David, Take it for yourself, and let my lord the king do that which is good in his eyes: look, 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 And King David said to Ornan, No; but I will truly buy it for the full price: for I will not take that which is yours 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 And David built there an altar to Yahweh, and offered burnt-offerings and peace-offerings, and called on Yahweh; and he answered him from heaven by fire on the altar of burnt-offering.

²⁷ And Yahweh commanded the angel; and he put up his sword again into its sheath.

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 tabernacle 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 could not go before it to inquire of God; for he was afraid because of the sword of the angel of Yahweh.