1 Chronicles 21:15–28

¹⁵and God sendeth a messenger to Jerusalem to destroy it, and as he is destroying Jehovah hath seen, and is comforted concerning the evil, and saith to the messenger who is destroying, ‘Enough, now, cease thy hand.’ And the messenger of Jehovah is standing by the threshing-floor of Ornan the Jebusite, ¹⁶and David lifteth up his eyes, and seeth the messenger of Jehovah standing between the earth and the heavens, and his sword drawn in his hand, stretched out over Jerusalem, and David falleth, and the elders, covered with sackcloth, on their faces. ¹⁷And David saith unto God, ‘Did not I—I say to number the people? Yea, I it is who have sinned, and done great evil: and these, the flock, what did they? O Jehovah, my God, let, I pray Thee, Thy hand be on me, and on the house of my father, and not on Thy people—to be plagued.’

¹⁸And the messenger of Jehovah spake unto Gad, saying for David, ‘Surely David doth go up to raise an altar to Jehovah in the threshing-floor of Ornan the Jebusite.’ ¹⁹And David goeth up by the word of Gad, that he spake in the name of Jehovah. ²⁰And Ornan turneth back, and seeth the messenger, and his four sons are with him, hiding themselves, and Ornan is threshing wheat. ²¹And David cometh in unto Ornan, and Ornan looketh attentively, and seeth David, and goeth out from the threshing-floor, and boweth himself to David—face to the earth. ²²And David saith unto Ornan, ‘Give to me the place of the threshing-floor, and I build in it an altar to Jehovah; for full silver give it to me, and the plague is restrained from the people.’ ²³And Ornan saith unto David, ‘Take to thee—and my lord the king doth that which is good in his eyes: see, I have given the oxen for burnt-offerings, and the threshing instruments for wood, and the wheat for a present; the whole I have given.’ ²⁴And king David saith to Ornan, ‘Nay, for I surely buy for full silver; for I do not lift up that which is thine to Jehovah, so as to offer a burnt-offering without cost.’ ²⁵And David giveth to Ornan for the place shekels of gold in weight six hundred; ²⁶and David buildeth there an altar to Jehovah, and offereth burnt-offerings and peace-offerings, and calleth unto Jehovah, and He answereth him with fire from the heavens on the altar of the burnt-offering. ²⁷And Jehovah saith to the messenger, and he turneth back his sword unto its sheath. ²⁸At that time when David seeth that Jehovah hath answered him in the threshing-floor of Ornan the Jebusite, then he sacrificeth there;