1 Chronicles 21:15–25

¹⁵Then God sent an angel to destroy Jerusalem, but as the angel was doing so, the LORD saw it and relented from the calamity, and He said to the angel who was destroying the people, “Enough! Withdraw your hand now!”

At that time the angel of the LORD was standing by the threshing floor of Ornan^c the Jebusite.

¹⁶When David lifted up his eyes and saw the angel of the LORD standing between heaven and earth, with a drawn sword in his hand stretched out over Jerusalem, David and the elders, clothed in sackcloth, fell facedown. ¹⁷And David said to God, “Was it not I who gave the order to count the people? I^d am the one who has sinned and acted wickedly. But these sheep, what have they done? O LORD my God, please let Your hand fall upon me and my father’s house, but do not let this plague remain upon Your people.”

¹⁸Then 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 Ornan the Jebusite. ¹⁹So David went up at the word that Gad had spoken in the name of the LORD.

²⁰Now Ornan was threshing wheat when he turned and saw the angel; and his four sons who were with him hid themselves. ²¹David came to Ornan, and when Ornan looked out and saw David, he left the threshing floor and bowed facedown before David.

²²Then David said to Ornan, “Grant me the site of this threshing floor, that I may build an altar to the LORD. Sell it to me for the full price, so that the plague upon the people may be halted.”

²³Ornan said to David, “Take it! May my lord the king do whatever seems good to 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 it all.”

²⁴“No,” replied King David, “I insist on paying the full price, for I will not take for the LORD what belongs to you, nor will I offer burnt offerings that cost me nothing.”

²⁵So David paid Ornan six hundred shekels of gold^e for the site.