2 Samuel 24
1 The LORD’s anger burned against Israel again, and he incited David against them, saying, “Go, count Israel and Judah.”
2 The king said to Joab, the commander of the army who was with him, “Please go through all the tribes of Israel, from Dan to Beersheba, and register the people, so I may know their number.”
3 Joab replied to the king, “May the LORD your God multiply the people a hundredfold, and may my lord the king live to see it! But why does my lord the king want to do this?”
4 But the king’s word prevailed over Joab and the army commanders. Joab and the army commanders left the king’s presence to register the people of Israel.
5 They crossed the Jordan and camped at Aroer, south of the city in the middle of the Gad valley, and near Jazer.
6 They went to Gilead and the land of Tahtim-hodshi; then they went to Dan-jaan, turned toward Sidon,
7 and went to the fortress of Tyre and all the cities of the Hivites and Canaanites. They came out toward the Negeb of Judah, at Beersheba.
8 They traveled through the whole land and, after nine months and twenty days, arrived in Jerusalem.
9 Joab gave the king the census total: Israel had eight hundred thousand able-bodied men who drew the sword, and Judah had five hundred thousand men.
10 After he had counted the people, David’s heart condemned him. David said to the LORD, “I have sinned greatly in what I have done. Now, LORD, please forgive your servant’s guilt, for I have acted like a great fool.”
11 When David got up in the morning, the word of the LORD came to the prophet Gad, David’s seer:
12 “Go and say to David, ‘This is what the LORD says: «I am setting three things before you. Choose one of them, and I will do it to you.»’”
13 Gad went to David and told him. He said, “Will seven years of famine come upon your land? Or will you flee from your enemies for three months while they pursue you? Or will there be three days of plague in your land? Now consider and decide what answer I should take back to the one who sent me.”
14 David answered Gad, “I am in great distress. Let us fall into the hands of the LORD, for his compassion is great; but let me not fall into human hands.”
15 So the LORD sent a plague on Israel from morning until the appointed time, and seventy thousand people died, from Dan to Beersheba.
16 When the angel stretched out his hand over Jerusalem to destroy it, the LORD relented from the calamity and said to the angel who was striking the people, “Enough! Now withdraw your hand.” The angel of the LORD was by the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite.
17 When David saw the angel striking the people, he said to the LORD, “I am the one who sinned; I am the one who acted wickedly. But what have these sheep done? Let your hand be against me and my father’s house.”
18 That day Gad went to David and said to him, “Go up and build an altar to the LORD on the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite.”
19 David went up as Gad had said, just as the LORD had commanded.
20 Araunah looked and saw the king and his servants coming toward him. Araunah went out and bowed before the king, face to the ground.
21 Araunah asked, “Why has my lord the king come to his servant?” David replied, “To buy your threshing floor and build an altar to the LORD, so the plague may be stopped among the people.”
22 Araunah said to David, “Let my lord the king take and offer whatever seems good to him. Look, here are the oxen for the burnt offering, and the threshing sledges and ox yokes for firewood.
23 All this, O king, Araunah gives to the king.” Then Araunah said to the king, “May the LORD your God accept you favorably.”
24 But the king said to Araunah, “No! I will buy it from you at a price. I will not offer burnt offerings to the LORD my God that cost me nothing.” So David bought the threshing floor and the oxen for fifty shekels of silver.
25 There David built an altar to the LORD and offered burnt offerings and fellowship offerings. The LORD was moved by prayer for the land, and the plague was stopped in Israel.
Read and listen to this chapter in the Shalem app, free: narration, chapter video and reading progress. Get the app