1 Chronicles 21:16-30 ▼

16 Then David raised his eyes and saw the angel of the LORD standing between earth and heaven, with his drawn sword in his hand stretched out over Jerusalem. Then David and the elders, covered with sackcloth, fell on their faces.

17 And David said to God, “Is it not I who commanded to count the people? Indeed, I am the one who has sinned and acted very wickedly, but these sheep, what have they done? LORD, my God, just let Your hand be against me and my father’s household, and not against Your people as a plague.”

18 Then the angel of the LORD commanded Gad to say to David, that David was to go up and build 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 spoke in the name of the LORD.

20 Now Ornan turned back and saw the angel, and his four sons who were with him hid themselves. And Ornan was threshing wheat.

21 As David came to Ornan, Ornan looked and saw David, and went out from the threshing floor and prostrated himself to David with his face to the ground.

22 Then David said to Ornan, “Give me the site of this threshing floor, so that I may build on it an altar to the LORD; you shall give it to me for the full price, so that the plague may be brought to a halt from the people.”

23 But Ornan said to David, “Take it for yourself, and may my lord the king do what is good in his sight. See, I am giving the oxen for burnt offerings, and the threshing sledges for wood and the wheat for the grain offering; I am giving it all.”

24 Nevertheless, King David said to Ornan, “No, but I will certainly buy it for the full price; for I will not take what is yours for the LORD, nor offer a burnt offering which costs me nothing.”

25 So David gave Ornan six hundred shekels of gold by weight for the site.

26 Then David built an altar there to the LORD, and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings. And he called to the LORD, and He answered him with fire from heaven on the altar of burnt offering.

27 The LORD commanded the angel, and he returned his sword to its sheath.

28 At that time, when David saw that the LORD had answered him on the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite, he offered sacrifice there.

29 For the tabernacle of the LORD, which Moses had made in the wilderness, and the altar of burnt offering were on the high place at Gibeon at that time.

30 But David could not go before it to inquire of God, for he was terrified by the sword of the angel of the LORD.