Joab said, Yahweh make his people a hundred times as many as they are: but, my lord the king, aren't they all my lord's servants? why does my lord require this thing? why will he be a cause of guilt to Israel?
Joab gave up the sum of the numbering of the people to David. All those of Israel were one million one hundred thousand men who drew sword: and in Judah were four hundred seventy thousand men who drew sword.
David said to God, I have sinned greatly, in that I have done this thing: but now, put away, I beg you, the iniquity of your servant; for I have done very foolishly.
either three years of famine; or three months to be consumed before your foes, while the sword of your enemies overtakes you; or else three days the sword of Yahweh, even pestilence in the land, and the angel of Yahweh destroying throughout all the borders of Israel. Now therefore consider what answer I shall return to him who sent me.
David said to Gad, I am in a great strait: let me fall, I pray, into the hand of Yahweh; for very great are his mercies: and let me not fall into the hand of man.
God sent an angel to Jerusalem to destroy it: and as he was about to destroy, Yahweh saw, and he repented him of the evil, and said to the destroying angel, It is enough; now stay your hand. The angel of Yahweh was standing by the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite.
David lifted up his eyes, and saw the angel of Yahweh standing between earth and the sky, having a drawn sword in his hand stretched out over Jerusalem. Then David and the elders, clothed in sackcloth, fell on their faces.
David said to God, Isn't it I who commanded the people to be numbered? It is even I who have sinned and done very wickedly; but these sheep, what have they done? Please let your hand, O Yahweh my God, be against me, and against my father's house; but not against your people, that they should be plagued.
Then the angel of Yahweh commanded Gad to tell David, that David should go up, and raise an altar to Yahweh in the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite.
Then David said to Ornan, Give me the place of this threshing floor, that I may build thereon an altar to Yahweh: for the full price shall you give it me, that the plague may be stayed from the people.
Ornan said to David, Take it to you, and let my lord the king do that which is good in his eyes: behold, I give you the oxen for burnt offerings, and the threshing instruments for wood, and the wheat for the meal-offering; I give it all.
King David said to Ornan, No; but I will most assuredly buy it for the full price: for I will not take that which is your for Yahweh, nor offer a burnt-offering without cost.
David built there an altar to Yahweh, and offered burnt offerings and peace-offerings, and called on Yahweh; and he answered him from the sky by fire on the altar of burnt offering.