1Again the anger of the LORD burned against Israel. He stirred up David against them and said, "Go, count the people of Israel and Judah."
2So the king said to Joab, the commander of the army who was with him, "Go now through all the tribes of Israel, from Dan to Beersheba, and count the people, so that I may know how many there are."
3Joab said to the king, "May the LORD your God add to the people a hundred times as many as they are, however many they may be, and may my lord the king live to see it. But why does my lord the king want to do this thing?"
4But the king's word overruled Joab and the commanders of the army. So Joab and the commanders of the army went out from the king to count the people of Israel.
5They crossed the Jordan and camped in Aroer, on the right side of the city that lies in the middle of the river of Gad, and toward Jazer.
6Then they came to Gilead, and to the land of Tahtimhodshi. They came to Danjaan, and round to Zidon,
7and came to the stronghold of Tyre, and to all the cities of the Hivites and the Canaanites. Then they went out to the south of Judah, as far as Beersheba.
8So when they had gone through all the land, they came to Jerusalem at the end of nine months and twenty days.
9Joab gave the total of the count of the people to the king. In Israel there were eight hundred thousand brave men who drew the sword, and the men of Judah were five hundred thousand men.
10David's heart struck him after he had counted the people. David said to the LORD, "I have sinned greatly in what I have done. Now, I beg you, LORD, take away the guilt of your servant, for I have acted very foolishly."
11When David got up in the morning, the word of the LORD came to the prophet Gad, David's seer. It said,
12"Go and say to David, 'This is what the LORD says: I offer you three things. Choose one of them, and I will do it to you.'"
13So Gad came to David and told him. He said to him, "Shall seven years of famine come to you in your land? Or will you run away for three months before your enemies while they chase you? Or shall there be three days of plague in your land? Now think it over, and see what answer I should give to the one who sent me."
14David said to Gad, "I am in great distress. Let us fall into the hand of the LORD, for his mercies are great. Do not let me fall into the hand of man."
15So the LORD sent a plague on Israel from the morning until the appointed time. Seventy thousand men of the people died, from Dan to Beersheba.
16When the angel stretched out his hand over Jerusalem to destroy it, the LORD changed his mind about the disaster. He said to the angel who was destroying the people, "It is enough. Hold back your hand now." The angel of the LORD was beside the threshing place of Araunah the Jebusite.
17When David saw the angel who was striking the people, he spoke to the LORD and said, "Look, I have sinned, and I have done wickedly. But these sheep, what have they done? Let your hand, I beg you, be against me and against my father's house."
18That day Gad came to David and said to him, "Go up. Build an altar to the LORD on the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite."
20Araunah looked and saw the king and his servants coming toward him. Araunah went out and bowed down before the king with his face to the ground.
21Araunah said, "Why has my lord the king come to his servant?" David said, "To buy the threshing floor from you, to build an altar to the LORD, so that the plague may be stopped from the people."
22Araunah said to David, "Let my lord the king take and offer up whatever seems good to him. Look, here are oxen for the burnt sacrifice, and the threshing sledges and the yokes of the oxen for wood."
23All these things Araunah, as a king, gave to the king. And Araunah said to the king, "May the LORD your God accept you."
24But the king said to Araunah, "No. I will certainly buy it from you for 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.
25David built an altar to the LORD there, and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings. So the LORD listened to the prayer for the land, and the plague was stopped from Israel.