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¹ Hasatan stood up against Yisra'el, and moved David to number Yisra'el. ² David said to Yo'av and to the princes of the people, Go, number Yisra'el from Be'er-Sheva even to Dan; and bring me word, that I may know the sum of them. ³ Yo'av said, the LORD 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 Yisra'el? ⁴ Nevertheless the king's word prevailed against Yo'av. Therefore Yo'av departed, and went throughout all Yisra'el, and came to Yerushalayim. ⁵ Yo'av gave up the sum of the numbering of the people to David. All those of Yisra'el were one million one hundred thousand men who drew sword: and in Yehudah were four hundred seventy thousand men who drew sword. ⁶ But he didn't count Levi and Binyamin among them; for the king's word was abominable to Yo'av.

⁷ God was displeased with this thing; therefore he struck Yisra'el. ⁸ David 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. ⁹ The LORD spoke to Gad, David's seer, saying, ¹⁰ Go and speak to David, saying, Thus says the LORD, I offer you three things: choose you one of them, that I may do it to you. ¹¹ So Gad came to David, and said to him, Thus says the LORD, 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 else three days the sword of the LORD, even pestilence in the land, and the angel of the LORD destroying throughout all the borders of Yisra'el. Now therefore consider what answer I shall return to him who sent me. ¹³ David said to Gad, I am in a great strait: let me fall, I pray, into the hand of the LORD; for very great are his mercies: and let me not fall into the hand of man. ¹⁴ So the LORD sent a pestilence on Yisra'el; and there fell of Yisra'el seventy thousand men. ¹⁵ God sent an angel to Yerushalayim to destroy it: and as he was about to destroy, the LORD saw, and he repented him of the evil, and said to the destroying angel, It is enough; now stay your hand. The angel of the LORD was standing by the threshing floor of Ornan the Yevusi. ¹⁶ David lifted up his eyes, and saw the angel of the LORD standing between eretz and the sky, having a drawn sword in his hand stretched out over Yerushalayim. Then David and the Zakenim, clothed in sackcloth, fell on their faces. ¹⁷ David 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 LORD 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 the LORD commanded Gad to tell David, that David should go up, and raise an altar to the LORD in the threshing floor of Ornan the Yevusi. ¹⁹ David went up at the saying of Gad, which he spoke in the name of the LORD. ²⁰ Ornan turned back, and saw the angel; and his four sons who were with him hid themselves. Now Ornan was threshing wheat. ²¹ 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 thereon an altar to the LORD: for the full price shall you give it me, that the plague may be stayed from the people. ²³ Ornan 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. ²⁴ King 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 the LORD, nor offer a burnt-offering without cost. ²⁵ So David gave to Ornan for the place six hundred shekels of gold by weight. ²⁶ David built there an altar to the LORD, and offered burnt offerings and peace-offerings, and called on the LORD; and he answered him from the sky by fire on the altar of burnt offering. ²⁷ The LORD commanded the angel; and he put up his sword again into the sheath of it. ²⁸ At that time, when David saw that the LORD had answered him in the threshing floor of Ornan the Yevusi, then he sacrificed there. ²⁹ For the tent of the LORD, which Moshe made in the wilderness, and the altar of burnt offering, were at that time in the high place at Giv`on. ³⁰ But David couldn't go before it to inquire of God; for he was afraid because of the sword of the angel of the LORD.