1 Chronicles 21

¹Again the anger of the Lord burned against Israel, and He stirred up David against them, saying, “Go and take a census of Israel and Judah.”

²So the king said to Joab the commander of his army, who was with him, “Go now throughout the tribes of Israel from Dan to Beersheba and register the troops, so that I may know their number.”

¹Then the angel showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the Lord, with Satan standing at his right hand to accuse him.

¹⁰And I heard a loud voice in heaven saying: “Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God, and the authority of His Christ. For the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down—he who accuses them day and night before our God.

⁴“Skin for skin!” Satan replied. “A man will give up all he owns in exchange for his life.

⁵But stretch out Your hand and strike his flesh and bones, and he will surely curse You to Your face.”

¹On another day the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came with them to present himself before Him.

²⁰And the Lord said, ‘Who will entice Ahab to march up and fall at Ramoth-gilead?’ And one suggested this, and another that.

²¹Then a spirit came forward, stood before the Lord, and said, ‘I will entice him.’ ‘By what means?’ asked the Lord.

²³David did not count the men aged twenty or under, because the Lord had said that He would make Israel as numerous as the stars of the sky.

²⁴Joab son of Zeruiah began to count the men but did not finish. For because of this census wrath came upon Israel, and the number was not entered in the Book of the Chronicles of King David.

¹Then all the Israelites from Dan to Beersheba and from the land of Gilead came out, and the congregation assembled as one man before the Lord at Mizpah.

⁵So they established a decree to circulate a proclamation throughout Israel, from Beersheba to Dan, that the people should come to keep the Passover of the Lord, the God of Israel, in Jerusalem. For they had not observed it in great numbers as prescribed.

²⁰So all Israel from Dan to Beersheba knew that Samuel was confirmed as a prophet of the Lord.

¹⁵So the Lord sent a plague upon Israel from that morning until the appointed time, and seventy thousand of the people from Dan to Beersheba died.

²⁵Throughout the days of Solomon, Judah and Israel dwelt securely from Dan to Beersheba, each man under his own vine and his own fig tree.

¹¹May the Lord, the God of your fathers, increase you a thousand times over and bless you as He has promised.

⁹Then Abimelech called Abraham and asked, “What have you done to us? How have I sinned against you, that you have brought such tremendous guilt upon me and my kingdom? You have done things to me that should not be done.”

²⁸A large population is a king’s splendor, but a lack of subjects is a prince’s ruin.

²⁴No, my sons; it is not a good report I hear circulating among the Lord’s people.

¹⁵You have enlarged the nation, O Lord; You have enlarged the nation. You have gained glory for Yourself; You have extended all the borders of the land.

¹⁹Your descendants would have been as countless as the sand, and your offspring as numerous as its grains; their name would never be cut off or eliminated from My presence.”

¹⁸But even if He does not, let it be known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the golden statue you have set up.”

²⁹But Peter and the other apostles replied, “We must obey God rather than men.

⁴For the king’s word is supreme, and who can say to him, “What are you doing?”

¹⁷The midwives, however, feared God and did not do as the king of Egypt had instructed; they let the boys live.

³But Joab replied to the king, “May the Lord your God multiply the troops a hundred times over, and may the eyes of my lord the king see it. But why does my lord the king want to do such a thing?”

⁴Nevertheless, the king’s word prevailed against Joab and against the commanders of the army. So Joab and the commanders of the army departed from the presence of the king to register the troops of Israel.

⁹And Joab reported to the king the total number of the troops. In Israel there were 800,000 men of valor who drew the sword, and in Judah there were 500,000.

²³David did not count the men aged twenty or under, because the Lord had said that He would make Israel as numerous as the stars of the sky.

²⁴Joab son of Zeruiah began to count the men but did not finish. For because of this census wrath came upon Israel, and the number was not entered in the Book of the Chronicles of King David.

⁴⁷The Levites, however, were not numbered along with them by the tribe of their fathers.

⁴⁸For the Lord had said to Moses:

⁹“Are you well, my brother?” Joab asked Amasa. And with his right hand Joab grabbed Amasa by the beard to kiss him.

¹⁰Amasa was not on guard against the dagger in Joab’s hand, and Joab stabbed him in the stomach and spilled out his intestines on the ground. And Joab did not need to strike him again, for Amasa was dead. Then Joab and his brother Abishai pursued Sheba son of Bichri.

¹⁵In the letter he wrote: “Put Uriah at the front of the fiercest battle; then withdraw from him, so that he may be struck down and killed.”

¹⁶So as Joab besieged the city, he assigned Uriah to a place where he knew the strongest enemy soldiers were.

²⁷When Abner returned to Hebron, Joab pulled him aside into the gateway, as if to speak to him privately, and there Joab stabbed him in the stomach. So Abner died on account of the blood of Joab’s brother Asahel.

¹During the reign of David there was a famine for three successive years, and David sought the face of the Lord. And the Lord said, “It is because of the blood shed by Saul and his family, because he killed the Gibeonites.”

¹⁶“This is what the whole congregation of the Lord says: ‘What is this breach of faith you have committed today against the God of Israel by turning away from the Lord and building for yourselves an altar, that you might rebel against the Lord this day?

¹⁷Was not the sin of Peor enough for us, from which we have not cleansed ourselves to this day? It even brought a plague upon the congregation of the Lord.

¹Again the anger of the Lord burned against Israel, and He stirred up David against them, saying, “Go and take a census of Israel and Judah.”

¹³Get up and consecrate the people, saying, ‘Consecrate yourselves for tomorrow, for this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: Among you, O Israel, there are things devoted to destruction. You cannot stand against your enemies until you remove them.

¹⁴So the Lord sent a plague upon Israel, and seventy thousand men of Israel fell dead.

¹The Israelites, however, acted unfaithfully regarding the things devoted to destruction. Achan son of Carmi, the son of Zabdi, the son of Zerah, of the tribe of Judah, took some of what was set apart. So the anger of the Lord burned against the Israelites.

¹³Then David said to Nathan, “I have sinned against the Lord.” “The Lord has taken away your sin,” Nathan replied. “You will not die.

⁹If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

²⁹The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!

⁵Then I acknowledged my sin to You and did not hide my iniquity. I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the Lord,” and You forgave the guilt of my sin. Selah

¹³Where could I ever take my shame? And you would be like one of the fools in Israel! Please speak to the king, for he will not withhold me from you.”

¹For the choirmaster. A Psalm of David. When Nathan the prophet came to him after his adultery with Bathsheba. Have mercy on me, O God, according to Your loving devotion; according to Your great compassion, blot out my transgressions.

²Wash me clean of my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin.

⁹(Formerly in Israel, a man on his way to inquire of God would say, “Come, let us go to the seer.” For the prophet of today was formerly called the seer.)

¹¹When David got up in the morning, the word of the Lord had come to Gad the prophet, David’s seer:

²⁹Now the acts of King David, from first to last, are indeed written in the Chronicles of Samuel the Seer, the Chronicles of Nathan the Prophet, and the Chronicles of Gad the Seer,

²⁹For they hated knowledge and chose not to fear the Lord.

³⁰They accepted none of my counsel; they despised all my reproof.

¹²But the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, “Because you did not trust Me to show My holiness in the sight of the Israelites, you will not bring this assembly into the land that I have given them.”

¹²for the Lord disciplines the one He loves, as does a father the son in whom he delights.

¹⁹Those I love I rebuke and discipline. Therefore be earnest and repent.

¹⁰Now, therefore, the sword will never depart from your house, because you have despised Me and have taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your own.’

¹¹This is what the Lord says: ‘I will raise up adversity against you from your own house. Before your very eyes I will take your wives and give them to another, and he will lie with them in broad daylight.

²¹and the prophet cried out to the man of God who had come from Judah, “This is what the Lord says: ‘Because you have defied the word of the Lord and have not kept the commandment that the Lord your God gave you,

²²but you went back and ate bread and drank water in the place where He told you not to do so, your body shall never reach the tomb of your fathers.’”

²⁰Listen to counsel and accept discipline, that you may be wise the rest of your days.

⁴⁹So will it be at the end of the age: The angels will come and separate the wicked from the righteous

⁵⁰and throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

¹⁵Then God sent an angel to destroy Jerusalem, but as the angel was doing so, the Lord saw it and relented from the calamity, and He said to the angel who was destroying the people, “Enough! Withdraw your hand now!” At that time the angel of the Lord was standing by the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite.

¹⁶When David lifted up his eyes and saw the angel of the Lord standing between heaven and earth, with a drawn sword in his hand stretched out over Jerusalem, David and the elders, clothed in sackcloth, fell facedown.

²³Immediately, because Herod did not give glory to God, an angel of the Lord struck him down, and he was eaten by worms and died.

³⁵The Lord will afflict you with painful, incurable boils on your knees and thighs, from the soles of your feet to the top of your head.

⁶‘Alas, O sword of the Lord, how long until you rest? Return to your sheath; cease and be still!’

¹During the reign of David there was a famine for three successive years, and David sought the face of the Lord. And the Lord said, “It is because of the blood shed by Saul and his family, because he killed the Gibeonites.”

⁷O Israel, put your hope in the Lord, for with the Lord is loving devotion, and with Him is redemption in abundance.

²³I am torn between the two. I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is far better indeed.

³¹It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

⁷Let the wicked man forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return to the Lord, that He may have compassion, and to our God, for He will freely pardon.

²⁷Now My soul is troubled, and what shall I say? ‘Father, save Me from this hour’? No, it is for this purpose that I have come to this hour.

¹¹“All the royal officials and the people of the king’s provinces know that one law applies to every man or woman who approaches the king in the inner court without being summoned—that he be put to death. Only if the king extends the gold scepter may that person live. But I have not been summoned to appear before the king for the past thirty days.”

⁴⁶Moses said to Aaron, “Take your censer, place fire from the altar in it, and add incense. Go quickly to the congregation and make atonement for them, because wrath has come out from the Lord; the plague has begun.”

⁴⁷So Aaron took the censer as Moses had ordered and ran into the midst of the assembly. And seeing that the plague had begun among the people, he offered the incense and made atonement for the people.

³⁵And that very night the angel of the Lord went out and struck down 185,000 men in the camp of the Assyrians. When the people got up the next morning, there were all the dead bodies!

¹⁵So the Lord sent a plague upon Israel from that morning until the appointed time, and seventy thousand of the people from Dan to Beersheba died.

²⁴Joab son of Zeruiah began to count the men but did not finish. For because of this census wrath came upon Israel, and the number was not entered in the Book of the Chronicles of King David.

⁹but those who died in the plague numbered 24,000.

³⁰During the night Pharaoh got up—he and all his officials and all the Egyptians—and there was loud wailing in Egypt; for there was no house without someone dead.

⁶And the Lord regretted that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart.

¹⁴So the Lord relented from the calamity He had threatened to bring on His people.

⁴¹When Jesus returned the third time, He said, “Are you still sleeping and resting? That is enough! The hour has come. Look, the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners.

³⁷O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those sent to her, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were unwilling!

³⁸Look, your house is left to you desolate.

¹⁸“Micah the Moreshite prophesied in the days of Hezekiah king of Judah and told all the people of Judah that this is what the Lord of Hosts says: ‘Zion will be plowed like a field, Jerusalem will become a heap of rubble, and the temple mount a wooded ridge.’

¹⁸Whenever the Lord raised up a judge for the Israelites, He was with that judge and saved them from the hands of their enemies while the judge was still alive; for the Lord was moved to pity by their groaning under those who oppressed them and afflicted them.

⁵Then Moses and Aaron fell facedown before the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel.

²⁷When Ahab heard these words, he tore his clothes, put on sackcloth, and fasted. He lay down in sackcloth and walked around meekly.

¹³Now when Joshua was near Jericho, he looked up and saw a man standing in front of him with a drawn sword in His hand. Joshua approached Him and asked, “Are You for us or for our enemies?”

¹⁴“Neither,” He replied. “I have now come as Commander of the Lord’s army.” Then Joshua fell facedown in reverence and asked Him, “What does my Lord have to say to His servant?”

¹³Yet when they were ill, I put on sackcloth; I humbled myself with fasting, but my prayers returned unanswered.

¹⁴I paced about as for my friend or brother; I was bowed down with grief, like one mourning for his mother.

¹⁷Then Elisha prayed, “O Lord, please open his eyes that he may see.” And the Lord opened the eyes of the young man, and he saw that the hills were full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha.

⁶When word reached the king of Nineveh, he got up from his throne, took off his royal robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes.

⁷Then he issued a proclamation in Nineveh: “By the decree of the king and his nobles: Let no man or beast, herd or flock, taste anything at all. They must not eat or drink.

⁶³so that when I make atonement for all you have done, you will remember and be ashamed and never again open your mouth because of your disgrace, declares the Lord God.”

¹¹You have given us up as sheep to be devoured; You have scattered us among the nations.

³³Now please let your servant stay here as my lord’s slave in place of the boy. Let him return with his brothers.

¹⁶By this we know what love is: Jesus laid down His life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers.

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

⁵You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on their children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me,

¹Then Solomon began to build the house of the Lord in Jerusalem on Mount Moriah, where the Lord had appeared to his father David. This was the place that David had prepared on the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite.

¹⁸And that day Gad came to David and said to him, “Go up and build an altar to the Lord on the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite.”

¹¹So Gad went and said to David, “This is what the Lord says: ‘You must choose

¹⁵Then God sent an angel to destroy Jerusalem, but as the angel was doing so, the Lord saw it and relented from the calamity, and He said to the angel who was destroying the people, “Enough! Withdraw your hand now!” At that time the angel of the Lord was standing by the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite.

²⁶Now an angel of the Lord said to Philip, “Get up and go south to the desert road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.”

²⁷So he started out, and on his way he met an Ethiopian eunuch, a court official in charge of the entire treasury of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians. He had gone to Jerusalem to worship,

⁵His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever He tells you.”

¹⁰Then Elisha sent him a messenger, who said, “Go and wash yourself seven times in the Jordan, and your flesh will be restored, and you will be clean.”

¹¹But Naaman went away angry, saying, “I thought that he would surely come out, stand and call on the name of the Lord his God, and wave his hand over the spot to cure my leprosy.

⁶“Now get up and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do.”

¹¹Then the angel of the Lord came and sat down under the oak in Ophrah that belonged to Joash the Abiezrite, where his son Gideon was threshing wheat in a winepress to hide it from the Midianites.

²³When Abigail saw David, she quickly got off the donkey, fell facedown, and bowed before him.

¹⁸And that day Gad came to David and said to him, “Go up and build an altar to the Lord on the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite.”

¹⁹So David went up at the word of Gad, just as the Lord had commanded.

²¹“Why has my lord the king come to his servant?” Araunah said. “To buy your threshing floor,” David replied, “that I may build an altar to the Lord, so that the plague upon the people may be halted.”

²So Ahab said to Naboth, “Give me your vineyard to use as a vegetable garden, since it is next to my palace. I will give you a better vineyard in its place—or if you prefer, I will give you its value in silver.”

⁸followed the Israelite into the tent, and drove the spear through both of them—through the Israelite and on through the belly of the woman. So the plague against the Israelites was halted,

⁴⁸He stood between the living and the dead, and the plague was halted.

²²Araunah said to David, “May my lord the king take whatever seems good to him and offer it up. Here are the oxen for a burnt offering and the threshing sledges and ox yokes for the wood.

²³O king, Araunah gives all these to the king.” He also said to the king, “May the Lord your God accept you.”

¹⁴The cart came to the field of Joshua of Beth-shemesh and stopped there near a large rock. The people chopped up the cart and offered the cows as a burnt offering to the Lord.

⁴“I am a foreigner and an outsider among you. Give me a burial site among you so that I can bury my dead.”

⁵The Hittites replied to Abraham,

⁸Then, as the Lord had said, my cousin Hanamel came to me in the courtyard of the guard and urged me, ‘Please buy my field in Anathoth in the land of Benjamin, for you own the right of inheritance and redemption. Buy it for yourself.’” Then I knew that this was the word of the Lord.

²⁷Surely caraway is not threshed with a sledge, and the wheel of a cart is not rolled over the cumin. But caraway is beaten out with a stick, and cumin with a rod.

²⁸Grain for bread must be ground, but it is not endlessly threshed. Though the wheels of the cart roll over it, the horses do not crush it.

²¹So Elisha turned back from him, took his pair of oxen, and slaughtered them. Using the oxen’s equipment for fuel, he cooked the meat and gave it to the people, and they ate. Then he set out to follow and serve Elijah.

¹⁶Three times a year all your men are to appear before the Lord your God in the place He will choose: at the Feast of Unleavened Bread, the Feast of Weeks, and the Feast of Tabernacles. No one should appear before the Lord empty-handed.

¹⁷Everyone must appear with a gift as he is able, according to the blessing the Lord your God has given you.

¹³and said to Ephron in their presence, “If you will please listen to me, I will pay you the price of the field. Accept it from me, so that I may bury my dead there.”

²³that I will not accept even a thread, or a strap of a sandal, or anything that belongs to you, lest you should say, ‘I have made Abram rich.’

¹²“But you profane it when you say, ‘The table of the Lord is defiled, and as for its fruit, its food is contemptible.’

¹³You also say: ‘Oh, what a nuisance!’ And you turn up your nose at it,” says the Lord of Hosts. “You bring offerings that are stolen, lame, or sick! Should I accept these from your hands?” asks the Lord.

²⁴“No,” replied the king, “I insist on paying a price, for I will not offer to the Lord my God burnt offerings that cost me nothing.” So David bought the threshing floor and the oxen for fifty shekels of silver.

²⁵And there he built an altar to the Lord and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings. Then the Lord answered the prayers on behalf of the land, and the plague upon Israel was halted.

²⁴Fire came out from the presence of the Lord and consumed the burnt offering and the fat portions on the altar. And when all the people saw it, they shouted for joy and fell facedown.

²¹Then the angel of the Lord extended the tip of the staff that was in his hand and touched the meat and the unleavened bread. And fire flared from the rock and consumed the meat and the unleavened bread. Then the angel of the Lord vanished from his sight.

⁸The sacrifice of the wicked is detestable to the Lord, but the prayer of the upright is His delight.

³⁸Then the fire of the Lord fell and consumed the sacrifice, the wood, the stones, and the dust, and it licked up the water in the trench.

¹⁵O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth will declare Your praise.

¹When Solomon had finished praying, fire came down from heaven and consumed the burnt offering and the sacrifices, and the glory of the Lord filled the temple.

⁵²“Put your sword back in its place,” Jesus said to him. “For all who draw the sword will die by the sword.

²⁰Bless the Lord, all His angels mighty in strength who carry out His word, who hearken to the voice of His command.

¹⁴Are not the angels ministering spirits sent to serve those who will inherit salvation?

³⁰Return the sword to its sheath! In the place where you were created, in the land of your origin, I will judge you.

¹⁵Then God sent an angel to destroy Jerusalem, but as the angel was doing so, the Lord saw it and relented from the calamity, and He said to the angel who was destroying the people, “Enough! Withdraw your hand now!” At that time the angel of the Lord was standing by the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite.

¹⁶When David lifted up his eyes and saw the angel of the Lord standing between heaven and earth, with a drawn sword in his hand stretched out over Jerusalem, David and the elders, clothed in sackcloth, fell facedown.

¹¹“Put your sword back in its sheath!” Jesus said to Peter. “Shall I not drink the cup the Father has given Me?”

³⁹And David left Zadok the priest and his fellow priests before the tabernacle of the Lord at the high place in Gibeon

¹³So Solomon went to Jerusalem from the high place in Gibeon, from before the Tent of Meeting, and he reigned over Israel.

³And Solomon and the whole assembly went to the high place at Gibeon because it was the location of God’s Tent of Meeting, which Moses the servant of the Lord had made in the wilderness.

⁴Now the king went to Gibeon to sacrifice there, for it was the great high place. Solomon offered a thousand burnt offerings on the altar there.

⁵One night at Gibeon the Lord appeared to Solomon in a dream, and God said, “Ask, and I will give it to you!”

¹Then the Lord said to Moses,

²“On the first day of the first month you are to set up the tabernacle, the Tent of Meeting.

²⁸Therefore, since we are receiving an unshakable kingdom, let us be filled with gratitude, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe.

²⁹“For our God is a consuming fire.”

¹⁷When I saw Him, I fell at His feet like a dead man. But He placed His right hand on me and said, “Do not be afraid. I am the First and the Last,

⁴Who will not fear You, O Lord, and glorify Your name? For You alone are holy. All nations will come and worship before You, for Your righteous acts have been revealed.”

²²Do you not fear Me?” declares the Lord. “Do you not tremble before Me, the One who set the sand as the boundary for the sea, an enduring barrier it cannot cross? The waves surge, but they cannot prevail. They roar but cannot cross it.

⁹That day David feared the Lord and asked, “How can the ark of the Lord ever come to me?”

⁶When I remember, terror takes hold, and my body trembles in horror.