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.
26. And David built there an altar unto the Lord, and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings, and called upon the Lord; and he answered him from heaven by fire upon the altar of burnt offering.
27. And the Lord commanded the angel; and he put up his sword again into the sheath thereof.
28. At that time, when David saw that the Lord had answered him in the threshing-floor of Ornan the Jebusite, then he sacrificed there.
29. For the tabernacle of the Lord, which Moses made in the wilderness, and the altar of burnt offering, were at that time in the high place at Gibeon.
30. But David could not go before it to inquire of God: for he was afraid because of the sword of the angel of the Lord.