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The First
Book of Paralipomenon 21
And Satan rose up against Israel: and moved David to
number Israel.
And David said to Joab, and to the rulers of the people:
Go, and number Israel from Bersabee even to Dan, and
bring me the number of them that I may know it.
And Joab answered: The Lord make his people a hundred
times more than they are : but, my lord the king, are
they not all thy servants: why doth my lord seek this
thing, which may be imputed as a sin to Israel?
But the king's word rather prevailed: and Joab departed,
and went through all Israel: and returned to Jerusalem.
And he gave David the number of them, whom he had surveyed:
and all the number of Israel was found to be eleven
hundred thousand men that drew the sword: and of Juda
four hundred and seventy thousand fighting men.
But Levi and Benjamin he did not number: for Joab unwillingly
executed the king's orders.
And God was displeased with this thing that was commanded:
and he struck Israel.
And David said to God: I have sinned exceedingly in
doing this: I beseech thee take away the iniquity of
thy servant, for I have done foolishly.
8oor of Ornan the Jebusite.
And the Lord spoke to Gad the seer of David, saying:
Go, and speak to David, and tell him: Thus saith the
Lord: I give thee the choice of three things: choose
one which thou wilt, and I will do it to thee.
And when Gad was come to David, he said to him: Thus
saith the Lord: choose which thou wilt:
Either three years' famine: or three months to flee
from thy enemies, and not to be able to escape their
sword: or three days to have the sword of the Lord,
and pestilence in the land, and the angel of the Lord
destroying in all the coasts of Israel: now therefore
see what I shall answer him who sent me.
And David said to Gad: I am on every side in a great
strait: but it is better for me to fall into the hands
of the Lord, for his mercies are many, than into the
hands of men.
So the Lord sent a pestilence upon Israel. And there
fell of Israel seventy thousand men.
And he sent an angel to Jerusalem, to strike it: and
as he was striking it, the Lord beheld, and took pity
for the greatness of the evil: and said to the angel
that destroyed: It is enough, now stop thy hand. And
the angel of the Lord stood by the thrashing
And David lifting up his eyes, saw the angel of the
Lord standing between heaven and earth, with a drawn
sword in his hand, turned against Jerusalem: and both
he and the ancients clothed in haircloth, fell down
flat on the ground.
And David said to God: Am not I he that commanded the
people to be numbered? It is I that have sinned: it
is I that have done the evil: but as for this flock,
what hath it deserved? O Lord my God, let thy hand be
turned, I beseech thee, upon me, and upon my father's
house: and let not thy people be destroyed.
And the angel of the Lord commanded Gad to tell David,
to go up, and build an altar to the Lord God in the
thrashingfloor of Ornan the Jebusite.
and David went up, according to the word of Gad, which
he spoke to him in the name of the Lord.
Now when Ornan looked up, and saw the angel, he and
his four sons hid themselves: for at that time he was
thrashing wheat in the floor.
And as David was coming to Ornan, Ornan saw him, and
went out of the thrashingfloor to meet him, and bowed
down to him with his face to the ground.
And David said to him: Give me this place of thy thrashingfloor,
that I may build therein an altar to the Lord: but thou
shalt take of me as much money as it is worth, that
the plague may cease from the people.
And Ornan said to David: Take it, and let my lord the
king do all that pleaseth him: and moreover the oxen
also I give for a holocaust, and the drays for wood,
and the wheat for the sacrifice: I will give it all
willingly.
And king David said to him: It shall not be so, but
I will give thee money as much se it is worth: for I
must not take it from thee, and so offer to the Lord
holocausts free cost.
So David gave to Ornan for the place, six hundred sides
of gold of just weight.
And he built there an altar to the Lord: and he offered
holocausts, and peace offerings, and he called upon
the Lord, and he heard him by sending Are from heaven
upon the altar of the holocaust.
And the Lord commanded the angel: and he put up his
sword again into the sheath.
And David seeing that the Lord had heard him in the
thrashingfloor of Oman the Jebusite, forthwith offered
victims there.
But the tabernacle of the Lord, which Moses made in
the desert, and the altar of holocausts, was at that
time in the high place of Gabaon.
And David could not go to the altar there to pray to
God: for he was seized with an exceeding great fear,
seeing the sword of the angel of the Lord. |
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