6. But Levi and Benjamin he did not include among them, for the king's order was detestable to Joab.
7. And God was displeased with this [reliance on human resources], and He smote Israel.
8. And David said to God, I have sinned greatly because I have done this thing. But now, I beseech You, take away the hateful wickedness of Your servant; for I have done very foolishly.
9. And the Lord said to Gad, David's seer,
10. Go and tell David, Thus says the Lord: I offer you three things; choose one of them, that I may do it to you.
11. So Gad came to David and said to him, Thus says the Lord: Take which one you will:
12. Either three years of famine, or three months of devastation before your foes, while the sword of your enemies overtakes you, or else three days of the sword of the Lord and pestilence in the land, and the angel of the Lord destroying throughout all the borders of Israel. Now therefore, consider what answer I shall return to Him Who sent me.
13. And David said to Gad, I am in great and distressing perplexity; let me fall, I pray you, into the hands of the Lord, for very great and many are His mercies; but let me not fall into the hands of man.
14. So the Lord sent a pestilence upon Israel, and there fell of Israel 70,000 men.
15. God sent an angel to Jerusalem to destroy it, and as he was destroying, the Lord beheld, and He regretted and relented of the evil and said to the destroying angel, It is enough; now stay your hand. And the angel of the Lord stood by the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite.
16. David lifted up his eyes and saw the angel of the Lord standing between earth and the heavens, having a drawn sword in his hand stretched out over Jerusalem. Then David and the elders, clothed in sackcloth, fell upon their faces.
17. And David said to God, Is it not I who commanded the people to be numbered? It is I who has sinned and done evil indeed; but as for these sheep, what have they done? Let Your hand, I pray You, O Lord my God, be on me and on my father's house, but not on Your 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 to the Lord in the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite.