2 Samuel 24:10–25

¹⁰After David had numbered the troops, his conscience was stricken and he said to the LORD, “I have sinned greatly in what I have done. Now, O LORD, I beg You to take away the iniquity of Your servant, for I have acted very foolishly.”

¹¹When David got up in the morning, the word of the LORD had come to Gad the prophet, David’s seer: ¹²“Go and tell David that this is what the LORD says: ‘I am offering you three options. Choose one of them, and I will carry it out against you.’”

¹³So Gad went and said to David, “Do you choose to endure three^d years of famine in your land, three months of fleeing the pursuit of your enemies, or three days of plague upon your land? Now then, think it over and decide how I should reply to Him who sent me.”

¹⁴David answered Gad, “I am deeply distressed. Please, let us fall into the hand of the LORD, for His mercies are great; but do not let me fall into the hands of men.”

¹⁵So the LORD sent a plague upon Israel from that morning until the appointed time, and seventy thousand of the people from Dan to Beersheba died.^e

¹⁶But when the angel stretched out his hand to destroy Jerusalem, the LORD relented from the calamity and said to the angel who was destroying the people, “Enough! Withdraw your hand now!” At that time the angel of the LORD was by the threshing floor of Araunah^f the Jebusite.

¹⁷When David saw the angel striking down the people, he said to the LORD, “Surely I, the shepherd,^g have sinned and acted wickedly. But these sheep, what have they done? Please, let Your hand fall upon me and my father’s house.”

¹⁸And that day Gad came to David and said to him, “Go up and build an altar to the LORD on the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite.” ¹⁹So David went up at the word of Gad, just as the LORD had commanded.

²⁰When Araunah looked out and saw the king and his servants coming toward him, he went out and bowed facedown before the king. ²¹“Why has my lord the king come to his servant?” Araunah said.

“To buy your threshing floor,” David replied, “that I may build an altar to the LORD, so that the plague upon the people may be halted.”

²²Araunah said to David, “May my lord the king take whatever seems good to him and offer it up. Here are the oxen for a burnt offering and the threshing sledges and ox yokes for the wood. ²³O king, Araunah gives all these to the king.” He also said to the king, “May the LORD your God accept you.”

²⁴“No,” replied the king, “I insist on paying a price, for I will not offer to the LORD my God burnt offerings that cost me nothing.”

So David bought the threshing floor and the oxen for fifty shekels of silver.^{h 25}And there he built an altar to the LORD and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings.

Then the LORD answered the prayers on behalf of the land, and the plague upon Israel was halted.