11. So Gad came to David and said to him, “Thus says the Lord, ‘Select for yourself,
12. either three years of famine, or three months of being swept away before your foes while the sword of your enemy overtakes you, or three days of the sword of the Lord, even pestilence in the land, with the angel of the Lord destroying throughout all the territory of Israel.’ Now then consider what answer I shall return to Him who sent me.”
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.
20. Now Ornan turned and saw the angel, but his four sons who were with him hid themselves as Ornan threshed the wheat.
21. As David came to Ornan, Ornan looked and saw David and went out from the threshing floor and bowed down before David with his face to the ground.
22. Then David said to Ornan, “Give me the site of the threshing floor so that I may build an altar on it to the Lord. Sell it to me at full price so the plague on the people may be restrained.”
23. So Ornan replied to David, “Take it for yourself, and let my lord the king do whatever seems good in his eyes. Look, I will give the oxen for the burnt offerings, the threshing wagons for wood, and the wheat for the grain offering. I will give it all.”
24. Then King David said to Ornan, “No, for I will surely acquire it for the full price, for I will not take what is yours for the Lord nor offer burnt offerings that cost me nothing.”