2. The king therefore said to Joab and the leaders of the army who were with him, “Tour all the tribes of Israel from Dan to Beer-sheba and register the people, that I may know their number.”
3. But Joab replied to the king: “May the Lord your God increase the number of people a hundredfold for my lord the king to see it with his own eyes. But why does it please my lord to do a thing of this kind?”
4. However, the king’s command prevailed over Joab and the leaders of the army, so they left the king’s presence in order to register the people of Israel.
5. Crossing the Jordan, they began near Aroer, south of the city in the wadi, and turned in the direction of Gad toward Jazer.
6. They continued on to Gilead and to the district below Mount Hermon. Then they proceeded to Dan; from there they turned toward Sidon,
7. going to the fortress of Tyre and to all the cities of the Hivites and Canaanites, and ending up in the Negeb of Judah, at Beer-sheba.
8. Thus they toured the whole land, reaching Jerusalem again after nine months and twenty days.
9. Joab then reported the census figures to the king: of men capable of wielding a sword, there were in Israel eight hundred thousand, and in Judah five hundred thousand.
10. Afterward, however, David regretted having numbered the people. David said to the Lord: “I have sinned grievously in what I have done. Take away, Lord, your servant’s guilt, for I have acted very foolishly.”
11. When David rose in the morning, the word of the Lord came to the prophet Gad, David’s seer, saying:
12. Go, tell David: Thus says the Lord: I am offering you three options; choose one of them, and I will give you that.
13. Gad then went to David to inform him. He asked: “Should three years of famine come upon your land; or three months of fleeing from your enemy while he pursues you; or is it to be three days of plague in your land? Now consider well: what answer am I to give to him who sent me?”
14. David answered Gad: “I am greatly distressed. But let us fall into the hand of God, whose mercy is great, rather than into human hands.”
15. Thus David chose the plague. At the time of the wheat harvest it broke out among the people. The Lord sent plague over Israel from morning until the time appointed, and from Dan to Beer-sheba seventy thousand of the people died.
16. But when the angel stretched forth his hand toward Jerusalem to destroy it, the Lord changed his mind about the calamity, and said to the angel causing the destruction among the people: Enough now! Stay your hand. The angel of the Lord was then standing at the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite.
17. When David saw the angel who was striking the people, he said to the Lord: “It is I who have sinned; it is I, the shepherd, who have done wrong. But these sheep, what have they done? Strike me and my father’s family!”