1 Chronicles 21:15–28

¹⁵And God sent an angel to Jerusalem to destroy it, but when he was about to destroy it, the Lord took note and relented concerning the calamity; he said to the destroying angel, “Enough! Stay your hand.” The angel of the Lord was standing by the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite.^{* 16}David looked up and saw the angel of the Lord standing between earth and heaven and in his hand a drawn sword stretched out over Jerusalem. Then David and the elders, clothed in sackcloth, fell on their faces.^{* 17}And David said to God, “Was it not I who gave the command to count the people? It is I who have sinned and done very wickedly. But these sheep, what have they done? Let your hand, I pray, O Lord my God, be against me and against my father’s house, but do not let your people be plagued!”^*

David’s Altar and Sacrifice

¹⁸Then the angel of the Lord commanded Gad to tell David that he should go up and erect an altar to the Lord on the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite.^{* 19}So David went up following Gad’s instructions, which he had spoken in the name of the Lord. ²⁰Ornan turned and saw the king,^l and while his four sons who were with him hid themselves, Ornan continued to thresh wheat. ²¹As David came to Ornan, Ornan looked and saw David; he went out from the threshing floor and prostrated himself before David with his face to the ground.^{* 22}David said to Ornan, “Give me the site of the threshing floor that I may build on it an altar to the Lord—give it to me at its full price—so that the plague may be averted from the people.” ²³Then Ornan said to David, “Take it, and let my lord the king do what seems good to him; see, I present the oxen for burnt offerings and the threshing sledges for the wood and the wheat for a grain offering. I give it all.” ²⁴But King David said to Ornan, “No, but I will buy them for the full price. I will not take for the Lord what is yours nor offer burnt offerings that cost me nothing.” ²⁵So David paid Ornan six hundred shekels of gold by weight for the site.^{* 26}David built there an altar to the Lord and presented burnt offerings and offerings of well-being. He called upon the Lord, and he answered him with fire from heaven on the altar of burnt offering.^{* 27}Then the Lord commanded the angel, and he put his sword back into its sheath.

The Place Chosen for the Temple

²⁸At that time, when David saw that the Lord had answered him at the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite, he made his sacrifices there.