1Chronicles:21:1-22

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* And Satan stood up against Israel , and moved David to number Israel . * And David said to Joab and to the princes of the people , Go , number Israel from Beersheba even to Dan , and bring me word that I may know the sum of them . * And Joab said , 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 require this thing ? Why will he be a cause of guilt to Israel ? * Nevertheless the king 's word prevailed against Joab . Therefore Joab departed , and went throughout all Israel , and came to Jerusalem . * And Joab gave up the sum of the numbering of the people to David . And all those of Israel were a million and a hundred thousand men who drew a sword . And Judah was four hundred seventy thousand men who drew a sword . * But he did not count Levi and Benjamin among them , for the king 's word was abominable to Joab . * And God was displeased with this thing , therefore he smote Israel . * And David said to God , I have sinned greatly , in that I have done this thing . But now , put away , I beseech thee , the iniquity of thy servant , for I have done very foolishly . * And LORD spoke to Gad , David 's seer , saying , * Go and speak to David , saying , Thus says LORD , I offer thee three things . Choose thee one of them , that I may do it to thee . * So Gad came to David , and said to him , Thus says LORD , Take which thou will : * either three years of famine , or three months to be consumed before thy foes while the sword of thine enemies overtakes thee , or else three days the sword of LORD , even pestilence in the land , and the agent of LORD destroying throu * And David said to Gad , I am in a great strait . Let me fall , I pray , into the hand of LORD , for his mercies are very great , and let me not fall into the hand of man . * So LORD sent a pestilence upon Israel , and there fell of Israel seventy thousand men . * And God sent an agent to Jerusalem to destroy it . And as he was about to destroy , LORD beheld , and he relented of the evil , and said to the destroying agent , It is enough . Now halt thy hand . And the agent of LORD was standing by th * And David lifted up his eyes , and saw the agent of LORD standing between earth and heaven , having a drawn sword in his hand stretched out over Jerusalem . Then David and the elders , clothed in sackcloth , fell upon their faces . * And David said to God , Is it not I who commanded the people to be numbered ? Even I it is who have sinned and done very badly . But these sheep , what have they done ? Let thy hand , I pray thee , O LORD my God , be against me , and agains * Then the agent of LORD commanded Gad to say to David that David should go up , and rear an altar to LORD in the threshing-floor of Ornan the Jebusite . * And David went up at the saying of Gad , which he spoke in the name of LORD . * And Ornan turned back , and saw the [heavenly ] agent , and his four sons who were with him hid themselves . Now Ornan was threshing wheat . * And as David came to Ornan , Ornan looked and saw David , and went out of the threshing-floor , and bowed himself to David with his face to the ground . * Then David said to Ornan , Give me the place of this threshing-floor , that I may build thereon an altar to LORD . For the full price thou shall give it me , that the plague may be stopped from the people .

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