2 Samuel 24

¹ Again the anger of the LORD burned against Israel, and he incited David against them, saying, "Go, count Israel and Judah."

² The king said to Joab the commander of the army who was with him, "Go through all the tribes of Israel, from Dan to Beersheba, and register the people, so that I may know the number of the people."

³ But Joab said to the king, "May the LORD your God add to the people a hundred times as many as there are, and may the eyes of my lord the king see it! But why does my lord the king desire this thing?"

⁴ But the king's word prevailed against Joab and against the commanders of the army. So Joab and the commanders of the army went out from the presence of the king to register the people of Israel.

⁵ They crossed the Jordan and camped at Aroer, south of the city that is in the middle of the valley, toward Gad and on to Jazer.

⁶ Then they came to Gilead and to the land of Tahtim-hodshi, and they came to Dan-jaan and around to Sidon.

⁷ Then they came to the fortress of Tyre and to all the cities of the Hivites and of the Canaanites. And they went out to the Negev of Judah at Beersheba.

⁸ So after going through all the land, they came back to Jerusalem at the end of nine months and twenty days.

⁹ Joab gave the number of the registration of the people to the king: in Israel there were eight hundred thousand valiant warriors who drew the sword, and the men of Judah were five hundred thousand.

¹⁰ David's heart struck him after he had counted the people. David said to the LORD, "I have sinned greatly in what I have done. Now, O LORD, please take away the iniquity of your servant, for I have acted very foolishly."

¹¹ When David got up in the morning, the word of the LORD came to the prophet Gad, David's seer, saying,

¹² "Go and say to David, 'This is what the LORD says: I am offering you three things. Choose one of them, and I will do it to you.'"

¹³ Gad came to David and told him, saying, "Shall seven years of famine come to you in your land? Or will you flee three months before your foes while they pursue you? Or shall there be three days of plague in your land? Now consider and decide what answer I should bring back to the one who sent me."

¹⁴ David said to Gad, "I am in great distress. Let us fall into the hand of the LORD, for his mercies are great, but let me not fall into the hand of man."

¹⁵ So the LORD sent a plague on Israel from the morning until the appointed time. And from Dan to Beersheba, seventy thousand men of the people died.

¹⁶ When the angel stretched out his hand toward Jerusalem to destroy it, the LORD relented from the calamity and said to the angel who was destroying the people, "Enough! Now stay your hand." The angel of the LORD was at the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite.

¹⁷ When David saw the angel who was striking the people, he said to the LORD, "Look, I have sinned and I have done wrong. But these sheep—what have they done? Please let your hand be against me and against my father's house."

¹⁸ Gad came to David that day and said to him, "Go up, raise an altar to the LORD on the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite."

¹⁹ So David went up according to Gad's word, as the LORD had commanded.

²⁰ Araunah looked down and saw the king and his servants coming toward him. Araunah went out and bowed before the king with his face to the ground.

²¹ Araunah said, "Why has my lord the king come to his servant?" David said, "To buy the threshing floor from you, to build an altar to the LORD, so that the plague may be withdrawn from the people."

²² Araunah said to David, "Let my lord the king take and offer up whatever seems good to him. Look—here are the oxen for the burnt offering, and the threshing sledges and the yokes of the oxen for the wood.

²³ All this, O king, Araunah gives to the king." And Araunah said to the king, "May the LORD your God accept you."

²⁴ But the king said to Araunah, "No, I will buy it from you at a price. I will not offer burnt offerings to the LORD my God that cost me nothing." So David bought the threshing floor and the oxen for fifty shekels of silver.

²⁵ David built an altar there to the LORD and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings. And the LORD answered the prayer for the land, and the plague was withdrawn from Israel.