8
David said to God, I have sinned greatly, in that I have done this thing: but now, put away, I beg you, the iniquity of your servant; for I have done very foolishly.
9
The LORD spoke to Gad, David's seer, saying,
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Go and speak to David, saying, Thus says the LORD, I offer you three things: choose you one of them, that I may do it to you.
11
So Gad came to David, and said to him, Thus says the LORD, Take which you will:
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either three years of famine; or three months to be consumed before your foes, while the sword of your enemies overtakes you; or else three days the sword of the LORD, even pestilence in the land, and the angel of the LORD destroying throughout all the borders of Yisra'el. Now therefore consider what answer I shall return to him who sent me.
13
David said to Gad, I am in a great strait: let me fall, I pray, 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 on Yisra'el; and there fell of Yisra'el seventy thousand men.
15
God sent an angel to Yerushalayim to destroy it: and as he was about to destroy, the LORD saw, and he repented him of the evil, and said to the destroying angel, It is enough; now stay your hand. The angel of the LORD was standing by the threshing floor of Ornan the Yevusi.
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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.
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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.
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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.