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¹ Then Satan stands up against Israel, and persuades David to number Israel,² and David says to Joab and to the heads of the people, "Go, number Israel from Beer-Sheba even to Dan, and bring [the account] to me, and I know their number."³ And Joab says, "YHWH adds to His people as they are one hundred times; are they not, my lord, O king, all of them for servants to my lord? Why does my lord seek this? Why is he for a cause of guilt to Israel?"⁴ And the word of the king [is] severe against Joab, and Joab goes out, and goes up and down in all Israel, and comes to Jerusalem.⁵ And Joab gives the account of the numbering of the people to David, and all Israel is one million and one hundred thousand, each drawing sword, and Judah [is] four hundred and seventy thousand, each drawing sword.⁶ And he has not numbered Levi and Benjamin in their midst, for the word of the king was abominable with Joab.

⁷ And it is evil in the eyes of God concerning this thing, and He strikes Israel,⁸ and David says to God, "I have sinned exceedingly in that I have done this thing; and now, please cause the iniquity of Your servant to pass away, for I have acted very foolishly."⁹ And YHWH speaks to Gad, seer of David, saying,¹⁰ "Go, and you have spoken to David, saying, Thus said YHWH: I am extending three [choices] to you; choose one of these for yourself, and I do [it] to you."¹¹ And Gad comes to David and says to him, "Thus said YHWH: Take for yourself—¹² either famine for three years, or three months to be consumed from the face of your adversaries (even [for] the sword of your enemies to overtake), or three days of the sword of YHWH (even pestilence in the land, and a messenger of YHWH destroying in all the border of Israel); and now, see; what word do I return to Him who is sending me?"¹³ And David says to Gad, "I am greatly distressed, please let me fall into the hand of YHWH, for His mercies [are] very many, and do not let me fall into the hand of man."¹⁴ And YHWH gives a pestilence in Israel, and there falls from Israel seventy thousand men,¹⁵ and God sends a messenger to Jerusalem to destroy it, and as he is destroying, YHWH has seen, and is comforted concerning the calamity, and says to the messenger who [is] destroying, "Enough now, cease your hand." And the messenger of YHWH is standing by the threshing-floor of Ornan the Jebusite,¹⁶ and David lifts up his eyes, and sees the messenger of YHWH standing between the earth and the heavens, and his sword [is] drawn in his hand, stretched out over Jerusalem, and David falls, and the elderly, covered with sackcloth, on their faces.¹⁷ And David says to God, "Did I not command to number the people? Indeed, it [is] I who have sinned, and done great evil: and these, the flock, what did they do? O YHWH, my God, please let Your hand be on me, and on the house of my father, and not on Your people—to be plagued."

¹⁸ And the messenger of YHWH commanded to Gad to say to David, "Surely David goes up to raise an altar to YHWH in the threshing-floor of Ornan the Jebusite."¹⁹ And David goes up by the word of Gad, that he spoke in the Name of YHWH.²⁰ And Ornan turns back and sees the messenger, and his four sons [are] with him hiding themselves, and Ornan is threshing wheat.²¹ And David comes to Ornan, and Ornan looks attentively and sees David, and goes out from the threshing-floor, and bows himself to David—face to the earth.²² And David says to Ornan, "Give the place of the threshing-floor to me, and I build an altar to YHWH in it; give it to me for full price, and the plague is restrained from the people."²³ And Ornan says to David, "Take [it] to yourself, and my lord the king does that which is good in his eyes; see, I have given the oxen for burnt-offerings, and the threshing instruments for wood, and the wheat for a present; I have given the whole."²⁴ And King David says to Ornan, "No, for I surely buy [it] for full price; for I do not lift up that which is yours to YHWH, so as to offer a burnt-offering without cost."²⁵ And David gives to Ornan six hundred shekels of gold [in] weight for the place;²⁶ and David builds an altar to YHWH there, and offers burnt-offerings and peace-offerings, and calls to YHWH, and He answers him from the heavens with fire on the altar of the burnt-offering.²⁷ And YHWH speaks to the messenger, and he turns back his sword to its sheath.²⁸ At that time, when David sees that YHWH has answered him in the threshing-floor of Ornan the Jebusite, then he sacrifices there;²⁹ and the Dwelling Place of YHWH that Moses made in the wilderness, and the altar of the burnt-offering, [are] at that time at a high place in Gibeon;³⁰ and David is not able to go before it to seek God, for he has been afraid because of the sword of the messenger of YHWH.