13. David replied to Gad, “I am in great distress. Let me fall into the hands of the Lord, for His mercies are very great, but do not let me fall into the hand of man.”
14. So the Lord sent a plague throughout Israel, and seventy thousand men of Israel fell.
15. And God sent an angel to Jerusalem to destroy it, but as he prepared to destroy it, the Lord looked and relented from the calamity. And He said to the angel bringing the destruction, “It is enough. Remove your hand.” The angel of the Lord was then standing 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 heaven with his sword drawn in his hand stretched out over Jerusalem. So David and the elders, covered in sackcloth, fell on their faces.
17. David said to God, “Was it not I who gave the command to number the people? I am the one who has sinned and surely done evil. But these sheep, what have they done? O Lord my God, I pray, let Your hand be against me and my father’s house, but do not let Your people be plagued.”
18. Then the angel of the Lord commanded Gad to tell David that David should go up and raise an altar to the Lord on the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite.
19. So David went up at the word of Gad which he delivered in the name of the Lord.