1 Chronicles
21
- Satan rose up against Israel and incited
David to take a census of Israel.
- So David said to Joab and the commanders
of the troops, "Go and count the Israelites from Beersheba to Dan. Then
report back to me so that I may know how many there are."
- But Joab replied, "May the LORD multiply
his troops a hundred times over. My lord the king, are they not all my lord's
subjects? Why does my lord want to do this? Why should he bring guilt on Israel
?"
- The king's word, however, overruled Joab;
so Joab left and went throughout Israel and then came back to Jerusalem.
- Joab reported the number of the fighting
men to David: In all Israel there were one million one hundred thousand men
who could handle a sword, including four hundred and seventy thousand in Judah.
- But Joab did not include Levi and Benjamin
in the numbering, because the king's command was repulsive to him.
- This command was also evil in the sight
of God; so he punished Israel.
- Then David said to God, "I have sinned
greatly by doing this. Now, I beg you, take away the guilt of your servant.
I have done a very foolish thing."
- The LORD said to Gad, David's seer,
- "Go and tell David, 'This is what the
LORD says: I am giving you three options. Choose one of them for me to carry
out against you.'"
- So Gad went to David and said to him, "This
is what the LORD says: 'Take your choice:
- three years of famine, three months of being
swept away before your enemies, with their swords overtaking you, or three
days of the sword of the LORD -- days of plague in the land, with the angel
of the LORD ravaging every part of Israel.' Now then, decide how I should
answer the one who sent me."
- David said to Gad, "I am in deep distress.
Let me fall into the hands of the LORD, for his mercy is very great; but do
not let me fall into the hands of men."
- So the LORD sent a plague on Israel, and
seventy thousand men of Israel fell dead.
- And God sent an angel to destroy Jerusalem.
But as the angel was doing so, the LORD saw it and was grieved because of
the calamity and said to the angel who was destroying the people, "Enough!
Withdraw your hand." The angel of the LORD was then standing at the threshing
floor of Araunah the Jebusite.
- David looked up and saw the angel of the
LORD standing between heaven and earth, with a drawn sword in his hand extended
over Jerusalem. Then David and the elders, clothed in sackcloth, fell facedown.
- David said to God, "Was it not I who
ordered the fighting men to be counted? I am the one who has sinned and done
wrong. These are but sheep. What have they done? O LORD my God, let your hand
fall upon me and my family, but do not let this plague remain on your people."
- Then the angel of the LORD ordered Gad to
tell David to go up and build an altar to the LORD on the threshing floor
of Araunah the Jebusite.
- So David went up in obedience to the word
that Gad had spoken in the name of the LORD.
- While Araunah was threshing wheat, he turned
and saw the angel; his four sons who were with him hid themselves.
- Then David approached, and when Araunah
looked and saw him, he left the threshing floor and bowed down before David
with his face to the ground.
- David said to him, "Let me have the
site of your threshing floor so I can build an altar to the LORD, that the
plague on the people may be stopped. Sell it to me at the full price."
- Araunah said to David, "Take it! Let
my lord the king do whatever pleases him. Look, I will give the oxen for the
burnt offerings, the threshing sledges for the wood, and the wheat for the
grain offering. I will give all this."
- But King David replied to Araunah, "No,
I insist on paying the full price. I will not take for the LORD what is yours,
or sacrifice a burnt offering that costs me nothing."
- So David paid Araunah six hundred shekels
of gold for the site.
- David built an altar to the LORD there and
sacrificed burnt offerings and fellowship offerings. He called on the LORD,
and the LORD answered him with fire from heaven on the altar of burnt offering.
- Then the LORD spoke to the angel, and he
put his sword back into its sheath.
- At that time, when David saw that the LORD
had answered him on the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite, he offered
sacrifices there.
- The tabernacle of the LORD, which Moses
had made in the desert, and the altar of burnt offering were at that time
on the high place at Gibeon.
- But David could not go before it to inquire
of God, because he was afraid of the sword of the angel of the LORD.
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