12. either three years of famine; or three months to be consumed before thy foes, while that the sword of thine enemies overtaketh thee; or else three days the sword of the Lord, even pestilence in the land, and the angel of the Lord destroying throughout all the coasts of Israel. Now therefore consider what answer I shall return to him that sent me.
13. And David said unto Gad, I am in a great strait: let me fall now into the hand of the Lord; for very great are his mercies: and let me not fall into the hand of man.
14. So the Lord sent a pestilence upon Israel: and there fell of Israel seventy thousand men.
15. And God sent an angel unto Jerusalem to destroy it: and as he was about to destroy, the Lord beheld, and he repented him of the evil, and said to the destroying angel, It is enough; now stay thine hand. And the angel of the Lord stood by the threshing-floor of Ornan the Jebusite.
16. And David lifted up his eyes, and saw the angel of the Lord stand between the earth and the heaven, having a drawn sword in his hand stretched out ever Jerusalem. Then David and the elders, clothed in sackcloth, fell upon their faces.
17. And David said unto God, Is it not I that commanded the people to be numbered? even I it is that have sinned and done very wickedly; but these sheep, what have they done? let thine hand, I pray thee, O Lord my God, be against me, and against my father's house; but not against thy 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 rear an altar unto the Lord in the threshing-floor of Ornan the Jebusite.
19. And David went up at the saying of Gad, which he spake in the name of the Lord.
20. And Ornan turned back, and saw the angel; and his four sons that were with him hid themselves. Now Ornan was threshing wheat.
21. 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.
22. Then David said to Ornan, Give me the place of this threshing-floor, that I may build thereon an altar unto the Lord: for the full price shalt thou give it me: that the plague may be stayed from the people.
23. And Ornan said unto David, Take it to thee, and let my lord the king do that which is good in his eyes: lo, I give thee the oxen for burnt offerings, and the threshing instruments for wood, and the wheat for the meal offering; I give it all.
24. And king David said to Ornan, Nay; but I will verily buy it for the full price: for I will not take that which is thine for the Lord, nor offer a burnt offering without cost.
25. So David gave to Ornan for the place six hundred shekels of gold by weight.