The Koine Bible

And a devil stood in Israel and incited David to number Israel

And King David said to Joab and to the rulers of the force, Go, number Israel from Beersheba even to Dan, and bring it to me, and I will know their number.

And Joab said, May the Lord add to his people as they are a hundredfold, and may the eyes of my lord the king be seeing it all; but why does my lord seek this thing, that it may not become as sin to Israel?

But the king’s word prevailed against Joab, and Joab went out and went through all the border of Israel and came to Jerusalem

And Joab gave the number of the muster of the people to David, and all Israel was one thousand thousands and one hundred thousands of men drawing sword, and Judah four hundred and eighty thousand men drawing sword.

But Levi and Benjamin he did not number among them, because the king’s word prevailed against Joab.

And this thing appeared evil before God, and he struck Israel.

And David said to God, I have sinned greatly, because I did this thing; and now, please remove the iniquity of your servant, because I have been made very foolish.

And the Lord spoke to Gad, David’s seer, saying

Go and speak to David, saying, Thus says the Lord: I raise three things against you; choose for yourself one of them, and I will do it to you.

And Gad came to David and said to him, Thus says the Lord: choose for yourself

or three years of famine, or three months for you to flee from before your enemies and the sword of your enemies to destroy, or three days of the sword of the Lord and death in the land, and the angel of the Lord destroying in all the inheritance of Israel; and now, see what I shall answer to the one who sent me a word

And David said to Gad, I am very distressed by the three; let me fall indeed into the hands of the Lord, for very many are his compassions, and into the hands of men I shall by no means fall.

And the Lord gave death in Israel, and seventy thousand men fell from Israel.

And God sent an angel into Jerusalem to destroy it; and as he was destroying, the Lord saw, and he repented concerning the evil, and he said to the angel who was destroying, It is enough for you; relax your hand. And the angel of the Lord was standing in the threshing floor of Orna the Jebusite.

And David lifted up his eyes and saw the angel of the Lord standing between the earth and between the heaven, and his sword drawn in his hand, stretched out over Jerusalem; and David fell, and the elders, clothed in sackcloth, on their faces.

And David said to God, Was it not I who said to number the people? and I am the one who sinned, I have done evil; but these sheep, what have they done? O Lord God, let your hand be on me and on my father’s house, and not on your people for destruction, O Lord.

And the angel of the Lord said to Gad to speak to David, that he should go up to set up an altar to the Lord on the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite.

And David went up according to the word of Gad, which he had spoken in the name of the Lord.

And Ornan turned back and saw the king, and his four sons with him, hiding themselves; and Ornan was threshing wheat.

And David came to Ornan, and Ornan came out from the threshing floor and bowed down to David with his face to the ground.

And David said to Ornan, Give me the place of your threshing floor, and I will build on it an altar to the Lord for a price of silver; give it to me, and the plague will cease from the people.

And Orna said to David, Take for yourself, and let my lord the king do what is good in his sight; behold, I have given the calves for a whole burnt offering, and the plow and the carts for wood, and the wheat for a sacrifice; I have given all things.

And King David said to Ornan, No, but buying I buy it for the worth of silver, because I will not take what is yours for the Lord, to offer up a whole burnt offering to the Lord as a freewill gift.

And David gave to Orna in his place six hundred shekels of gold by weight

And David built there an altar to the Lord and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings, and he called to the Lord, and he answered him by fire from heaven upon the altar of the burnt offering, and it consumed the burnt offering

And the Lord said to the angel, and he put down the sword into the sheath.

At that time, when David saw that the Lord had heard him in the threshing floor of Orna the Jebusite, and he sacrificed there.

and the tent of the Lord, which Moses made in the wilderness, and the altar of burnt offerings at that time in Bamah in Gibeon

And David was not able to go before it to seek God, because he had hastened away from before the sword of the angel of the Lord