1 Chronicles 21

1 Chronicles Chapter 21 KJV

1David tempted by Satan forceth Joab to number Israel. 7God is displeased: David acknowledgeth his fault. 9Gad being sent from God to propose one out of three plagues to his choice, he chooseth three days' pestilence. 14Seventy thousand in Israel being already cut off, the destroying angel is stayed over Jerusalem: 16David on sight of the angel humbly intercedeth for the people. 18By Gad's direction having bought Ornan's threshingfloor, he buildeth an altar, and sacrificeth: God signifieth his favour by fire from heaven, and stayeth the plague.
1 And 1Satan stood up against Israel, and provoked David to number Israel.
2 And David said to Joab and to the rulers of the people, Go, number Israel from 1Beer-sheba even to Dan; and 2bring the number of them to me, that I may know it.
3 And Joab answered, 1The Lord make his people an hundred times so many more as they be: but, my lord the king, are they not all my lord's servants? why then doth my lord require this thing? why will he be a cause of trespass to Israel?
4 Nevertheless 1the king's word prevailed against Joab. Wherefore Joab departed, and went throughout all Israel, and came to Jerusalem.
5 ¶ And Joab gave the sum of the number of the people unto David. And all they of Israel 1were a thousand thousand and an hundred thousand men that drew sword: and Judah was four hundred threescore and ten thousand men that drew sword.
6 But 1Levi and Benjamin counted he not among them: for the king's word was abominable to Joab.
7 aAnd God was displeased with this thing; therefore he 1smote Israel.
8 And David said unto God, 1I have sinned greatly, because I have done this thing: but now, I beseech thee, do away the iniquity of thy servant; for I have done very foolishly.
9 ¶ And the Lord spake unto Gad, David's 1seer, saying,
10 Go and tell David, saying, Thus saith the Lord, I aoffer thee three things: choose 1thee one of them, that I may do it unto thee.
11 So Gad 1came to David, and said unto him, Thus saith the Lord, aChoose thee
12 Either 1three years' famine; or three months to be destroyed before thy foes, while that the sword of thine enemies overtaketh thee; or else three days the sword of the Lord, even the pestilence, in the land, and the angel of the Lord destroying throughout all the coasts of Israel. Now therefore advise thyself what word I shall bring again to him that sent me.
13 And David said unto Gad, I am in a great strait: let me fall now into the hand of the Lord; for very agreat are his mercies: but 1let me not fall into the hand of man.
14 ¶ So the Lord sent pestilence upon Israel: and there fell of Israel 1seventy thousand men.
15 And God sent an angel unto Jerusalem to destroy it: and as he was destroying, the Lord beheld, and he 1repented him of the evil, and said to the angel that destroyed, It is enough, stay now thine hand. And the angel of the Lord stood by the threshingfloor of aOrnan the Jebusite.
16 And David lifted up his eyes, and saw the 1angel of the Lord stand between the earth and the heaven, having a drawn sword in his hand stretched out over Jerusalem. Then David and the elders of Israel, 2who were clothed in sackcloth, fell upon their faces.
17 And David said unto God, 1Is it not I that commanded the people to be numbered? even I it is that have sinned and done evil indeed; but as for 2these sheep, what have they done? let thine hand, I pray thee, O Lord my God, be on me, and on my father's house; but not on thy people, that they should be plagued.
18 ¶ Then the angel of the Lord commanded Gad to say to David, that David should go up, and set up an altar unto the Lord 1in the threshingfloor of Ornan the Jebusite.
19 And David went up 1at the saying of Gad, which he spake in the name of the Lord.
20 aAnd Ornan turned back, and saw the angel; and his four sons with him hid themselves. Now Ornan was threshing wheat.
21 And as David came to Ornan, Ornan looked and saw David, and went out of the threshingfloor, and bowed himself to David with his face to the ground.
22 Then David said to Ornan, aGrant me the place of this threshingfloor, that I may build an altar therein unto the Lord: thou shalt grant it me for the full price: that 1the plague may be stayed from the people.
23 And Ornan said unto David, 1Take it to thee, and let my lord the king do that which is good in his eyes: lo, I give thee the oxen also for burnt offerings, and the threshing instruments for wood, and the 2wheat for the meat offering; I give it all.
24 And king David said to Ornan, 1Nay; but I will verily buy it for the full price: for I will not take that which is thine for the Lord, nor offer burnt offerings without cost.
25 So 1David gave to Ornan for the place six hundred shekels of gold by weight.
26 And David built there an altar unto the Lord, and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings, and called upon the Lord; and 1he answered him from heaven by fire upon the altar of burnt offering.
27 And the Lord commanded the angel; and he put up his sword again into the sheath thereof.
28 ¶ At that time when David saw that the Lord had answered him in the threshingfloor of Ornan the Jebusite, then he 1sacrificed there.
29 For the tabernacle of the Lord, which Moses made in the wilderness, and the altar of the burnt offering, were at that season in the high place at 1Gibeon.
30 But David could not go before it 1to enquire of God: for he was 2afraid because of the sword of the angel of the Lord.
1 Chronicles 21