16
David lifted up his eyes, and saw the angel of the LORD standing between eretz and the sky, having a drawn sword in his hand stretched out over Yerushalayim. Then David and the Zakenim, clothed in sackcloth, fell on their faces.
17
David said to God, Isn't it I who commanded the people to be numbered? It is even I who have sinned and done very wickedly; but these sheep, what have they done? Please let your hand, O LORD my God, be against me, and against my father's house; but not against your people, that they should 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 in the threshing floor of Ornan the Yevusi.
19
David went up at the saying of Gad, which he spoke in the name of the LORD.
20
Ornan turned back, and saw the angel; and his four sons who were with him hid themselves. Now Ornan was threshing wheat.
21
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 to the LORD: for the full price shall you give it me, that the plague may be stayed from the people.
23
Ornan said to David, Take it to you, and let my lord the king do that which is good in his eyes: behold, I give [you] the oxen for burnt offerings, and the threshing instruments for wood, and the wheat for the meal-offering; I give it all.
24
King David said to Ornan, No; but I will most assuredly buy it for the full price: for I will not take that which is your 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
David built there an altar to the LORD, and offered burnt offerings and peace-offerings, and called on the LORD; and he answered him from the sky by fire on the altar of burnt offering.