17
And David said to God, Was it not I who gave the order for the people to be numbered? It is I who have done the sin and the great wrong; but these are only sheep; what have they done? let your hand, O Lord God, be lifted up against me and against my family, but not against your people to send disease on them.
18
Then the angel of the Lord gave orders to Gad to say to David that he was to go and put up an altar to the Lord on the grain-floor of Ornan the Jebusite.
19
And David went up, as Gad had said in the name of the Lord.
20
And Ornan, turning back, saw the angel, and his four sons who were with him went to a secret place. Now Ornan was crushing his grain.
21
And when David came, Ornan, looking, saw him, and came out from the grain-floor and went down on his face to the earth before him.
22
Then David said to Ornan, Give me the place where this grain-floor is, so that I may put up an altar here to the Lord: let me have it for its full price; so that this disease may be stopped among the people.
23
And Ornan said to David, Take it, and let my lord the king do what seems right to him. See, I give you the oxen for burned offerings and the grain-cleaning instruments for fire-wood, and the grain for the meal offering; I give it all.
24
And King David said to Ornan, No; I will certainly give you the full price for it, because I will not take for the Lord what is yours, or give a burned offering without payment.
25
So David gave Ornan six hundred shekels of gold by weight for the place.
26
And David put up an altar there to the Lord, offering burned offerings and peace-offerings with prayers to the Lord; and he gave him an answer from heaven, sending fire on the altar of burned offering.
27
Then the Lord gave orders to the angel, and he put back his sword into its cover.