Chapter 21
And Joab answered,
Why will he be a cause of trespass to Israel?
Nevertheless, the king's word prevailed against Joab.
Wherefore Joab departed, and went throughout all Israel, and came to
Jerusalem.
And Joab gave the sum of the number of the people unto David.
And all they of Israel were a thousand thousand and an hundred thousand men that
drew sword.
And Judah was four hundred threescore and ten thousand men that drew sword.
But Levi and Benjamin counted he not among them.
For the king's word was abominable to Joab.
And God was displeased with this thing.
Therefore he smote Israel.
And David said unto God, I have sinned greatly, because I have done this thing.
But now I beseech thee, do away the iniquity of thy servant, for I have done
very foolishly.
And the Lord spake unto Gad, David's seer, saying, Go and tell David, saying,
Thus saith the Lord, I offer thee three things.
Choose thee one of them, that I may do it unto thee.
So Gad came to David, and said unto him, Thus saith the Lord, Choose thee either
three years' famine, or three months to be destroyed before thy foes, while that the
sword of thine enemies overtaketh thee, or else three days, the sword of the Lord,
even the pestilence in the land, and the angel of the Lord destroying
throughout all the coasts of Israel.
Now therefore advise thyself what word I shall bring again to him that sent me.
And David said unto Gad, I am in a great strait.
Let me fall now into the hand of the Lord, for very great are his mercies.
But let me not fall into the hand of man.
So the Lord sent pestilence upon Israel, and there fell of Israel seventy thousand
men.
And God sent an angel unto Jerusalem to destroy it.
And as he was destroying, the Lord beheld.
And he repented him of the evil, and said to the angel that destroyed,
It is enough.
Stay now thine hand.
And the angel of the Lord stood by the threshing floor of Ornan at Jebusite.
And David lifted up his eyes and saw the angel of the Lord stand between the earth
and the heaven, having a drawn sword in his hand, stretched out over Jerusalem.
Then David and the elders of Israel, who were clothed in sackcloth,
fell upon their faces.
And David said unto God, Is it not I that commanded the people to be numbered?
Even I it is that have sinned and done evil indeed.
But as for these sheep, what have they done?
Let thine hand, I pray thee, O Lord my God, be on me and on my father's house,
but not on thy people, that they should be plagued.
Then the angel of the Lord commanded Gad to say to David that David should go up
and set up an altar unto the Lord in the threshing floor of Ornan at Jebusite.
And David went up with the saying of Gad, which he spake in the name of the Lord.
And Ornan turned back and saw the angel, and his four sons with him hid themselves.
Now Ornan was threshing wheat, 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.
Then David said to Ornan, Grant me the place of this threshing floor,
that I may build an altar therein unto the Lord.
There shall grant it me for the full price, that the plague may be stayed from
the people.
And Ornan said unto David, Take it to thee, and let my lord the king do that
which is good in his eyes.
Lo, I give thee the oxen also for burnt offerings, and the threshing instruments
for wood, and the wheat for the meat offering.
I give it all.
And king David said to Ornan, Nay, but I will verily buy it for the full
price.
For I will not take that which is thine for the Lord, nor offer burnt offerings
without cost.
So David gave to Ornan for the place six hundred shekels of gold by weight.
And David built there an altar unto the Lord, and offered burnt offerings and
peace offerings, and called upon the Lord.
And he answered him from heaven by fire upon the altar of burnt offering.
And the Lord commanded the angel, and he put up his sword again into the
sheath thereof.
At that time, when David saw that the Lord had answered him in the threshing floor of
Ornan the Jebusite, then he sacrificed there.
For the tabernacle of the Lord, which Moses made in the wilderness,
and the altar of the burnt offering, were at that season in the high place at
Gibeon.
But David could not go before it to inquire of God, for he was afraid because
of the sword of the angel of the Lord.