7And God was displeased with this thing (an act of arrogance and pride); so He struck Israel. 8And David said to God, “I have sinned greatly, because I have done this thing; but now, I beseech You, take away this iniquity of Your servant; for I have done very foolishly”. 9And the LORD spoke to Gad, David's seer, saying, 10“Go and tell David, saying, Thus says the LORD, ‘I offer you three things; choose one of them, that I may do it to you.’ 11So Gad came to David, and said to him, “Thus says the LORD, Choose for yourself: 12Either three years' famine; or three months to be defeated before your foes, while the sword of your enemies overtakes you; or else three days the sword of the LORD, even the pestilence, in the land, and the Angel of the LORD bringing destruction throughout all the borders of Israel. Now, therefore, consider what word I shall return to Him Who sent me”. 13And David said to Gad, “I am in a great strait. Let me fall now into the hand of the LORD; for very great are His mercies. But let me not fall into the hand of man.”

14So the LORD sent pestilence upon Israel; and seventy thousand men of Israel fell (died). 15And God sent an Angel unto Jerusalem to destroy it: and as He was destroying, the LORD looked, and He relented of the evil, and said to the destroying Angel, “It is enough, stay now Your hand.” And the Angel of the LORD stood by the threshing floor of Ornan, the Jebusite. 16And David looked, and saw the Angel of the LORD stand between the earth and the heaven, having a drawn sword in His hand stretched out over Jerusalem. Then David and the elders of Israel, who were clothed in sackcloth, fell upon their faces. 17And David said to God, “Is it not I who ordered the people to be numbered? Even I it is who has sinned and indeed done evil; but as for these sheep, what have they done? Let Your hand, I pray Thee, O LORD my God, be on me, and on my father's house; but not on Your people, that they should be plagued.”

18Then the Angel of the LORD commanded Gad to say to David, that David should go up, and set up an altar unto the LORD in the threshing floor of Ornan, the Jebusite. 19And David went up at the word of Gad, which he spoke in the name of the LORD. 20And Ornan turned back, and saw the Angel; and he and his four sons hid themselves. Now Ornan was threshing wheat. 21And as David came to Ornan, Ornan saw David, and went out of the threshing floor, and bowed himself to David with his face to the ground. 22Then David said to Ornan, “Grant me the place of this threshing floor, that I may build an altar in it unto the LORD; you shall sell it to me for the full price; that the plague may be averted from the people”. 23And Ornan said to David, “Take it, and let my lord, the king, do that which is good in his eyes; lo, I give you the oxen also for burnt offerings, and the threshing instruments for wood, and the wheat for the meal offering; I give it all”. 24And David said to Ornan, “Nay; but I will verily buy it for the full price; for I will not take that which is yours for the LORD, nor offer burnt offerings without cost”. 25So David gave to Ornan for the place six hundred shekels (about 15 pounds) of gold by weight. 26And David built an altar there unto the LORD, and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings, and called upon the LORD; and He answered him from heaven by fire upon the altar of burnt offering. 27And the LORD commanded the Angel; and He put up His sword back into its sheath.

28At that time when David saw that the LORD had answered him in the threshing floor of Ornan, the Jebusite, then he sacrificed there. 29For the tabernacle of the LORD, which Moses made in the wilderness, and the altar of the burnt offering, were at that season in the high place at Gibeon. 30But David could not go before it to enquire of God; for he was afraid because of the sword of the Angel of the LORD.