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[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 Beersheba even to Dan; and bring me word, that I may know the sum of them.'
[3]And Joab said: '𐤉𐤇𐤅𐤇 make His people a hundred times so many more as they are; but, my lord the king, are they not all my lord's servants? why doth my lord require this thing? why will he be a cause of guilt unto Israel?'
[4]Nevertheless the king's word prevailed against Joab. Wherefore Joab departed and went throughout all Israel, and came to Jerusalem.
[5]And Joab gave up the sum of the numbering of the people unto David. And all they of Israel were a thousand thousand and a hundred thousand men that drew sword; and Judah was four hundred three-score and ten thousand men that drew sword.
[6]But Levi and Benjamin he did not number among them; for the king's word was abominable to Joab.
[7]And God was displeased with this thing; therefore He smote Israel.
[8]And David said unto God: 'I have sinned greatly, in that I have done this thing; but now, put away, I beseech Thee, the iniquity of Thy servant; for I have done very foolishly.'
[9]And 𐤉𐤇𐤅𐤇 spoke unto Gad, David's seer, saying:
[10]'Go and speak unto David saying: Thus saith 𐤉𐤇𐤅𐤇: I offer thee three things; choose thee one of them, that I may do it unto thee.'
[11]So Gad came to David, and said unto him: 'Thus saith 𐤉𐤇𐤅𐤇: Take which thou wilt:
[12]Either three years of famine; or three months to be swept away before thy foes, while the sword of thine enemies overtaketh thee; or else three days the sword of 𐤉𐤇𐤅𐤇, even pestilence in the land, and the angel of 𐤉𐤇𐤅𐤇 destroying throughout all the borders of Israel. Now therefore consider what answer I shall return to Him that sent me.'
[13]And David said unto Gad: 'I am in a great strait; let me fall now into the hand of 𐤉𐤇𐤅𐤇, for very great are His mercies; and let me not fall into the hand of man.'
[14]So 𐤉𐤇𐤅𐤇 sent a pestilence upon Israel; and there fell of Israel seventy thousand men.
[15]And God sent an angel unto Jerusalem to destroy it; and as he was about to destroy, 𐤉𐤇𐤅𐤇 beheld, and He repented Him of the evil, and said to the destroying angel: 'It is enough; now stay thy hand.' And the angel of 𐤉𐤇𐤅𐤇 was standing by the threshing-floor of Ornan the Jebusite.
[16]And David lifted up his eyes, and saw the angel of 𐤉𐤇𐤅𐤇 standing between the earth and the heaven, having a drawn sword in his hand stretched out over Jerusalem. Then David and the elders, clothed in sackcloth, fell upon their faces.
[17]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 very wickedly; but these sheep, what have they done? let Thy hand, I pray Thee, O 𐤉𐤇𐤅𐤇 my God, be against me, and against my father's house; but not against Thy people, that they should be plagued.'
[18]Then the angel of 𐤉𐤇𐤅𐤇 commanded Gad to say to David, that David should go up, and rear an altar unto 𐤉𐤇𐤅𐤇 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 𐤉𐤇𐤅𐤇.
[20]And Ornan turned back, and saw the angel; and his four sons that 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 down 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 unto 𐤉𐤇𐤅𐤇; for the full price shalt thou give it me; that the plague may be stayed from the people.'
[23]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 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: 'Nay, but I will verily buy it for the full price; for I will not take that which is thine for 𐤉𐤇𐤅𐤇, 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 unto 𐤉𐤇𐤅𐤇, and offered burnt-offerings and peace-offerings, and called upon 𐤉𐤇𐤅𐤇; and He answered him from heaven by fire upon the altar of burnt-offering.
[27]And 𐤉𐤇𐤅𐤇 commanded the angel; and he put up his sword back into the sheath thereof.
[28]At that time, when David saw that 𐤉𐤇𐤅𐤇 had answered him in the threshing-floor of Ornan the Jebusite, then he sacrificed there.
[29]For the tabernacle of 𐤉𐤇𐤅𐤇, 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 terrified because of the sword of the angel of 𐤉𐤇𐤅𐤇.
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