1 Chronicles 21:1-12 ▼

1 And Satan stood up against Israel and incited David to number Israel.

2 And David said to Joab and to the heads of the people, “Go, number Israel from Beersheba and as far as Dan and bring it to me, that I may know their number.”

3 And Joab answered, “May YHWH add to His people as they are a hundred times. Are they not, my lord O king, all of them for my lord as servants? Why does my lord require this? Why should he be a cause of guilt in Israel?”

4 And the word of the king was strengthened against Joab, and Joab went out and went throughout all Israel, and he came to Jerusalem.

5 And Joab gave the account of the number of the people to David. And all Israel had a thousand thousands and a hundred thousand men who drew the sword, and Judah had four hundred and seventy thousand men who drew the sword.

6 And Levi and Benjamin he did not count in their midst, for the word of the king was abominable to Joab.

7 And it was evil in the eyes of God concerning this thing, and He struck Israel.

8 And David said to God, “I have sinned greatly because I have done this thing. And take away, please, the iniquity of Your servant, for I have acted very foolishly.”

9 And YHWH spoke to Gad, seer of David, saying,

10 “Go and declare to David, saying, thus says YHWH: ‘Three things I offer to you; choose for yourself one of them, that I may do it to you.’”

11 And Gad came to David and said to him, “Thus says YHWH: ‘Choose for yourself

12 either three years of famine, or three months of being swept away before the faces of your foes—and the sword of your enemies overtaking you, or three days of the sword of YHWH and the plague upon the land and the angel of YHWH destroying in all the territory of Israel.’ And consider what word I should take back to Him who sent me.”