1 Chronicles 21 - Simple English

1Satan stood up against Israel, and stirred David up to count the people of Israel.

2So David said to Joab and to the rulers of the people, "Go and count Israel, from Beersheba all the way to Dan. Then bring me the number, so that I may know it."

3Joab answered, "May the LORD make his people a hundred times as many as they are. But, my lord the king, are they not all my lord's servants? Why does my lord ask for this? Why should he bring guilt on Israel?"

4But the king's word was stronger than Joab. So Joab left and went through all Israel, and then came back to Jerusalem.

5Joab gave David the total of the people. All Israel had one million one hundred thousand men who drew the sword, and Judah had four hundred and seventy thousand men who drew the sword.

6But he did not count Levi and Benjamin among them, because the king's command was hateful to Joab.

7God was displeased with this thing, and so he struck Israel.

8David said to God, "I have sinned greatly, because I have done this thing. But now, I beg you, take away the guilt of your servant, for I have acted very foolishly."

9The LORD spoke to Gad, David's seer, and said,

10"Go and tell David, 'This is what the LORD says: I offer you three things. Choose one of them, and I will do it to you.'"

11So Gad came to David and said to him, "This is what the LORD says: Choose for yourself"

12"either three years of famine; or three months of being swept away before your foes, while the sword of your enemies catches up with you; or else three days of the sword of the LORD, that is, plague in the land, with the angel of the LORD destroying through all the borders of Israel. Now decide what answer I should take back to him who sent me."

13David said to Gad, "I am in great trouble. Let me fall into the hand of the LORD, for his mercies are very great. But do not let me fall into the hand of man."

14So the LORD sent plague on Israel, and seventy thousand men of Israel fell.

15God sent an angel to Jerusalem to destroy it. But as he was destroying, the LORD looked, and he changed his mind about the harm, and said to the angel who was destroying, "It is enough. Hold back your hand now." The angel of the LORD was standing by the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite.

16David looked up and saw the angel of the LORD standing between earth and heaven, with a drawn sword in his hand stretched out over Jerusalem. Then David and the elders of Israel, dressed in sackcloth, fell on their faces.

17David said to God, "Was it not I who ordered the people to be counted? It is I who have sinned and done a great evil. But these sheep, what have they done? Please, LORD my God, let your hand be against me and against my father's house, but not against your people, to plague them."

18Then the angel of the LORD told Gad to say to David that David should go up and set up an altar to the LORD on the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite.

19So David went up, as Gad had told him to in the name of the LORD.

20Ornan turned round and saw the angel, and his four sons who were with him hid themselves. Ornan was threshing wheat.

21As David came to Ornan, Ornan looked and saw David. He went out from the threshing floor and bowed down to David with his face to the ground.

22Then David said to Ornan, "Give me the site of this threshing floor, so that I may build an altar on it to the LORD. Give it to me for the full price, so that the plague may be stopped from the people."

23Ornan said to David, "Take it for yourself, and let my lord the king do what seems good to him. Look, I give you the oxen as well for burnt offerings, and the threshing tools for wood, and the wheat for the grain offering. I give it all."

24But King David said to Ornan, "No. I will certainly buy it for the full price. I will not take what is yours for the LORD, or offer burnt offerings that cost me nothing."

25So David gave Ornan six hundred shekels of gold by weight for the site.

26David built an altar there to the LORD, and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings, and called on the LORD. The LORD answered him from heaven with fire on the altar of burnt offering.

27Then the LORD gave the angel a command, and he put his sword back into its sheath.

28At that time, when David saw that the LORD had answered him on the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite, he offered sacrifices there.

29For the tabernacle of the LORD, which Moses made in the wilderness, and the altar of burnt offering, were at that time at the high place in Gibeon.

30But David could not go there to ask God, because he was afraid of the sword of the angel of the LORD.