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          DASV: 1 Chronicles 21    

1 Satan stood up against Israel, and incited David to number Israel.
2 David said to Joab and to the commanders of the army, "Go, number Israel, from Beer-sheba to Dan; and bring back a report, so that I may know their total number."
3 But Joab objected, "The LORD make his people a hundred times as many as they are. O my lord the king, are they not all my lord's servants? Why does my lord require this? Why will he bring guilt on Israel?"
4 But the king's word prevailed against Joab. So Joab departed, and went throughout all Israel, and then returned to Jerusalem.
5 Joab reported the census total of the people to David. There were in Israel 1,100,000 men who could wield a sword. Judah had 470,000 who could wield a sword.
6 But Joab had not included Levi and Benjamin in the census; for the king's word was repulsive to Joab.

7 God was displeased with this thing, therefore he struck Israel because of it.
8 Then David confessed to God, "I have sinned greatly, by doing this thing. But now, please take away the guilt of your servant; for I have acted very foolishly."
9 The LORD spoke to Gad, David's seer, saying,
10 "Go, tell David, 'This is what the LORD says: I offer you three options: choose one of them, so that I may inflict it on you.'"
11 So Gad came to David, and told him, "This is what the LORD says, 'Take your pick:
12 either three years of famine; or three months of devastation by your foes, while the sword of your enemies overtakes you; or three days of the sword of the LORD, that is, pestilence in the land, and the angel of the LORD destroying throughout all of Israel's territory. Now decide what answer I should give to him who sent me."
13 David replied to Gad, "I am in a great quandry: Please let me fall into the hand of the LORD; for his mercies are very great; but let me not fall into human hands."

14 So the LORD sent a plague on Israel; and 70,000 men of Israel died.
15 God sent an angel to Jerusalem to destroy it. But as he was about to destroy, the LORD saw it and he relented of the calamity, and said to the destroying angel, "It is enough; stop your hand." And the angel of the LORD was standing at the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite.
16 David lifted up his eyes, and saw the angel of the LORD standing between heaven and earth, having a drawn sword in his hand stretched out over Jerusalem. Then David and the elders, clothed in sackcloth, fell on their faces.
17 David pleaded with God, "Was it not I who commanded the people to be numbered? It is not I who have sinned and done this great wickedness; but these sheep, what have they done? Please let your hand, O LORD my God, be against me, and against my father's house; but not against your people, but spare them of this plague."

18 Then the angel of the LORD commanded Gad to tell David, that David should go up, and build an altar to the LORD at the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite.
19 So David went up at the direction of Gad, which he spoke in the name of the LORD.
20 Ornan turned back, and saw the angel; and his four sons that were with him hid themselves. Now Ornan was threshing wheat.
21 As David approached Ornan, Ornan looked and saw David, and came off the threshing floor, and bowed himself to David with his face to the ground.
22 Then David said to Ornan, "Sell me this threshing floor, that I may build on it an altar to the LORD. I will pay full price for it, so that the plague may be stopped from the people."
23 Ornan replied to David, "It's yours! Let my lord the king do whatever seems right in his eyes. I am giving you the oxen for burnt offerings, the threshing instruments for wood, and wheat for the grain offering. I will give it all to you."
24 Then king David said to Ornan, "No; I insist on paying full price for it. I will not take what is yours for the LORD, or offer a burnt offering that cost me nothing."
25 So David paid Ornan six hundred shekels of gold for the site.

26 David built an altar to the LORD there, and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings, and called on the LORD. He answered him from heaven by sending fire on the altar of burnt offering.
27 Then the LORD commanded the angel; and he put his sword back into its sheath.
28 At that time, when David saw that the LORD had answered him at the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite, he sacrificed there.
29 For the tabernacle of the LORD, which Moses made in the wilderness, and the altar of burnt offering, were at that time at the high place of Gibeon.
30 But David could not go before it to inquire of God; for he was afraid because of the sword of the angel of the LORD.

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