15. God also sent a Messenger to Jerusalem to destroy it, but as he was destroying it, the Lord reconsidered and changed his mind about the disaster. “Enough!” he said to the destroying Messenger. “Put down your weapon.” The Messenger of the Lord was standing by the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite.
16. When David looked up, he saw the Messenger of the Lord standing between heaven and earth. The Messenger had a sword in his hand and stretched it over Jerusalem. David and the leaders were dressed in sackcloth. They bowed down with their faces touching the ground.
17. David said to God, “I’m the one who ordered the people to be counted. I am the one who sinned and did wrong. What have these sheep done? Lord my God, let your punishment be against me and my father’s family, but don’t punish your people with a plague.”
18. The Lord’s Messenger told Gad to tell David to go and set up an altar for the Lord at Ornan the Jebusite’s threshing floor.
19. David went as Gad had told him in the Lord’s name.
20. Now, Ornan had turned around and seen the Messenger. Ornan’s four sons who were with him hid, but Ornan kept on threshing the wheat.
21. When David arrived, Ornan looked up and saw him. So he left the threshing floor and bowed down with his face touching the ground in front of David.
22. David said to Ornan, “Let me have the land this threshing floor is on. I’ll build an altar for the Lord on it. Sell it to me for the full price. Then the plague on the people will stop.”