1 Chronicles
Chapter 21
1 Satan acted against Israel and tempted David to count the people of Israel.
2 David told Joab and the people’s leaders, “Go, count the people of Israel from Beersheba to Dan; then tell me the total so I can know it.”
3 Joab replied, “May God increase his people a hundred times over what they are. But my king, aren’t they all your servants? So why does my king want this? Why would he bring guilt on Israel?”
4 But the king’s command was stronger than Joab’s objections. So Joab left, traveled all over Israel, and returned to Jerusalem.
5 Joab told David how many people there were. In Israel, there were one million one hundred thousand soldiers with swords; in Judah, there were four hundred seventy thousand soldiers with swords.
6 But Levi and Benjamin were not included by him because Joab found the king’s command detestable.
7 God was unhappy with this; so he punished Israel.
8 David said to God, “I have sinned a lot because I did this. But now, please forgive your servant’s wrong; I have been very foolish.”
9 God spoke to Gad, David’s prophet, saying,
10 Go and tell David, ‘God says, I am giving you three choices: pick one, so I can do it for you.’
11 So Gad went to David and said, “This is what God tells you, ‘Choose for yourself’
12 You can choose: three years with not enough food; or three months running from your enemies as they chase you; or three days of a deadly disease in the land, with God’s angel bringing destruction everywhere in Israel. Now decide what answer I should take back to the one who sent me.
13 David told Gad, “I am in big trouble. Let me be punished by God because His mercy is very great, but don’t let me be punished by people.”
14 God brought a disease on Israel, and seventy thousand men died.
15 God sent an angel to destroy Jerusalem, but as the destruction began, God saw what was happening, felt sorry for the harm, and told the angel to stop. The angel then stopped near the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite.
16 David looked up and saw God’s angel standing between earth and sky, with a drawn sword in his hand extended over Jerusalem. Then David and the leaders of Israel, wearing rough clothes, fell face down.
17 David said to God, “Wasn’t it me who ordered the counting of the people? It was me who sinned and did wrong. But these sheep, what have they done? Please let your punishment be on me and my family, not on your people, so they don’t suffer.”
18 Then God’s angel told Gad to tell David to go and build an altar for God on Ornan the Jebusite’s threshing floor.
19 David went up following Gad’s instructions, which he gave in God’s name.
20 Ornan turned around, saw the angel, and his four sons with him hid. Ornan was threshing wheat.
21 When David arrived at Ornan’s place, Ornan saw him, left the threshing floor, and bowed down to David with his face to the ground.
22 David said to Ornan, “Let me have this threshing floor to build an altar for God. Sell it to me at its full price, so that the sickness will stop hurting the people.”
23 Ornan said to David, “Take this and let the king do what seems right to him: Look, I give you the oxen for the burnt offerings, the threshing tools for wood, and the wheat for the grain offering; I give it all.”
24 King David said to Ornan, “No, I will really buy it for the full price. I won’t take what is yours for God or give burnt offerings for free.”
25 David paid Ornan six hundred gold shekels for the land.
26 David made an altar for God, gave burnt and peace offerings, prayed to God, and God responded with fire from heaven on the burnt offering altar.
27 God told the angel to put his sword back in its sheath.
28 At that time, David saw that God had answered him at Ornan the Jebusite’s threshing floor, and he made sacrifices there.
29 The tent of God that Moses set up in the desert, and the altar for burnt sacrifices, were then on the hill at Gibeon.
30 David could not approach to ask God because he was afraid of the angel’s sword.