1 Chronicles 21:13-30 ▼

13 And David said to Gad, “There is great distress to me. Let me fall, please, into the hand of YHWH, for very great are His mercies; and into the hand of man do not let me fall.”

14 And YHWH sent a plague upon Israel, and fell from Israel seventy thousand men.

15 And God sent an angel to Jerusalem to destroy it, and as he was destroying, YHWH saw and relented of the disaster, and He said to the angel who was destroying, “Enough now! Restrain your hand.” And the angel of YHWH stood by the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite.

16 And David lifted up his eyes and saw the angel of YHWH standing between the earth and between the heavens, and his sword being drawn in his hand stretched out over Jerusalem. And David fell, and the elders, covered in sackcloth, on their faces.

17 And David said to God, “Was it not I who said to number the people? And I am he who has sinned and done great evil. And these sheep, what have they done? O YHWH my God, please, let Your hand be upon me and upon the house of my father, and not upon Your people, that they should be plagued.”

18 And the angel of YHWH spoke to Gad, to say to David that David should go and erect an altar to YHWH on the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite.

19 And David went up at the word of Gad, which he had spoken in the name of YHWH.

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

21 And David came to Ornan, and Ornan looked and saw David, and he went out from the threshing floor and bowed before David with his face to the ground.

22 And David said to Ornan, “Grant me the place of the threshing floor, that I may build on it an altar to YHWH. At the full price you shall grant it to me, that the plague may be withdrawn from the people.”

23 And Ornan said to David, “Take it to yourself, and let my lord the king do good in his eyes. See, I give you the oxen for burnt offerings, and the threshing sledges for wood, and the wheat for the grain offering; all I have given.”

24 And King David said to Ornan, “No, but I will surely buy it for the full price; for I will not take what is yours for YHWH, so as to offer a burnt offering without cost.”

25 And David gave to Ornan for the place six hundred shekels of gold by weight.

26 And David built there an altar to YHWH, and he offered burnt offerings and peace offerings, and he called to YHWH. And He answered him by fire from the heavens on the altar of the burnt offering.

27 And YHWH commanded the angel, and he returned his sword to its sheath.

28 At that time David saw that YHWH had answered him on the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite, and he sacrificed there.

29 For the tabernacle of YHWH, which Moses had made in the wilderness, and the altar of the burnt offering, were at that time at the high place in Gibeon.

30 David could not go before it to inquire of God, for he was afraid of the sword of the angel of YHWH.