2 Samuel 24

¹Then Satan rose up against Israel and incited David to take a census of Israel.

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.

¹³When tempted, no one should say, “God is tempting me.” For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does He tempt anyone.

¹⁴But each one is tempted when by his own evil desires he is lured away and enticed.

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.

²⁰As for you, what you intended against me for evil, God intended for good, in order to accomplish a day like this—to preserve the lives of many people.

⁹But if the prophet is enticed to speak a message, then it was I the Lord who enticed him, and I will stretch out My hand against him and destroy him from among My people Israel.

¹⁰to transfer the kingdom from the house of Saul and to establish the throne of David over Israel and Judah, from Dan to Beersheba.”

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.

⁵This is what the Lord says: “Cursed is the man who trusts in mankind, who makes mere flesh his strength and turns his heart from the Lord.

²³Now Joab was over the whole army of Israel; Benaiah son of Jehoiada was over the Cherethites and Pelethites;

¹⁶Joab son of Zeruiah was over the army; Jehoshaphat son of Ahilud was the recorder;

²⁵But because his heart was proud, Hezekiah did not repay the favor shown to him. Therefore wrath came upon him and upon Judah and Jerusalem.

²⁶Then Hezekiah humbled the pride of his heart—he and the people of Jerusalem—so that the wrath of the Lord did not come upon them during the days of Hezekiah.

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

¹⁴May the Lord give you increase, both you and your children.

⁵Then you will look and be radiant, and your heart will tremble and swell with joy, because the riches of the sea will be brought to you, and the wealth of the nations will come to you.

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

¹²Be strong and let us fight bravely for our people and for the cities of our God. May the Lord do what is good in His sight.”

³But Joab replied, “May the Lord multiply His troops a hundred times over. My lord the king, are they not all servants of my lord? Why does my lord want to do this? Why should he bring guilt on Israel?”

⁴Nevertheless, the king’s word prevailed against Joab. So Joab departed and traveled throughout Israel, and then he returned to Jerusalem.

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

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

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

⁴Nevertheless, the king’s word prevailed against Joab. So Joab departed and traveled throughout Israel, and then he returned to Jerusalem.

³⁶From Aroer on the rim of the Arnon Valley, along with the city in the valley, even as far as Gilead, not one city had walls too high for us. The Lord our God gave us all of them.

⁹The area from Aroer on the rim of the Arnon Valley, along with the city in the middle of the valley, the whole plateau of Medeba as far as Dibon,

¹⁶The territory from Aroer on the rim of the Arnon Valley, along with the city in the middle of the valley, to the whole plateau beyond Medeba,

³“Ataroth, Dibon, Jazer, Nimrah, Heshbon, Elealeh, Sebam, Nebo, and Beon,

³⁵Atroth-shophan, Jazer, Jogbehah,

³²After Moses had sent spies to Jazer, Israel captured its villages and drove out the Amorites who were there.

²⁸It went on to Ebron, Rehob, Hammon, and Kanah, as far as Greater Sidon.

¹⁵And Canaan was the father of Sidon his firstborn, and of the Hittites,

¹Now the Reubenites and Gadites, who had very large herds and flocks, surveyed the lands of Jazer and Gilead, and they saw that the region was suitable for livestock.

⁸and the Lord delivered them into the hand of Israel, who struck them down and pursued them all the way to Greater Sidon and Misrephoth-maim, and eastward as far as the Valley of Mizpeh. They struck them down, leaving no survivors.

⁴⁷Laban called it Jegar-sahadutha, and Jacob called it Galeed.

⁴⁸Then Laban declared, “This mound is a witness between you and me this day.” Therefore the place was called Galeed.

³⁹The descendants of Machir son of Manasseh went to Gilead, captured it, and drove out the Amorites who were there.

²⁹The border then turned back toward Ramah as far as the fortified city of Tyre, turned toward Hosah, and came out at the Sea in the region of Achzib,

³to the Canaanites in the east and west; to the Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, and Jebusites in the hill country; and to the Hivites at the foot of Hermon in the land of Mizpah.

³the five rulers of the Philistines, all the Canaanites, the Sidonians, and the Hivites who lived in the mountains of Lebanon from Mount Baal-hermon to Lebo-hamath.

²²At that time Abimelech and Phicol the commander of his army said to Abraham, “God is with you in all that you do.

²³Now, therefore, swear to me here before God that you will not deal falsely with me or my children or descendants. Show to me and to the country in which you reside the same kindness that I have shown to you.”

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.”

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.

⁵And Joab reported to David the total number of the troops. In all Israel there were 1,100,000 men who drew the sword, including 470,000 in Judah.

⁶But Joab did not include Levi and Benjamin in the count, because the king’s command was detestable to him.

⁴⁴These were the men numbered by Moses and Aaron, with the assistance of the twelve leaders of Israel, each one representing his family.

⁴⁵So all the Israelites twenty years of age or older who could serve in Israel’s army were counted according to their families.

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

¹³“You have acted foolishly,” Samuel declared. “You have not kept the command that the Lord your God gave you; if you had, the Lord would have established your kingdom over Israel for all time.

¹³He who conceals his sins will not prosper, but whoever confesses and renounces them will find mercy.

⁵Afterward, David’s conscience was stricken because he had cut off the corner of Saul’s robe.

⁹For the eyes of the Lord roam to and fro over all the earth, to show Himself strong on behalf of those whose hearts are fully devoted to Him. You have acted foolishly in this matter. From now on, therefore, you will be at war.”

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

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.)

⁵Then the prophet Gad said to David, “Do not stay in the stronghold. Depart and go into the land of Judah.” So David left and went to the forest of Hereth.

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,

¹⁹When Azubah died, Caleb married Ephrath, who bore to him Hur.

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

⁶For the Lord disciplines the one He loves, and He chastises every son He receives.”

⁷Endure suffering as discipline; God is treating you as sons. For what son is not disciplined by his father?

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

⁴¹and I acted with hostility toward them and brought them into the land of their enemies—and if their uncircumcised hearts will be humbled and they will make amends for their iniquity,

¹⁰“Go and tell David that this is what the Lord says: ‘I am offering you three options. Choose one of them, and I will carry it out against you.’”

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

⁴³For the land will be abandoned by them, and it will enjoy its Sabbaths by lying desolate without them. And they will pay the penalty for their iniquity, because they rejected My ordinances and abhorred My statutes.

¹²between three years of famine, three months of being swept away before your enemies and overtaken by their swords, or three days of the sword of the Lord—days of plague upon the land, with the angel of the Lord ravaging every part of Israel.’ Now then, decide how I should reply to Him who sent me.”

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.”

²⁵And I will bring a sword against you to execute the vengeance of the covenant. Though you withdraw into your cities, I will send a plague among you, and you will be delivered into the hand of the enemy.

¹Now Elijah the Tishbite, who was among the settlers of Gilead, said to Ahab, “As surely as the Lord, the God of Israel, lives, before whom I stand, there will be neither dew nor rain in these years except at my word!”

²Then a revelation from the Lord came to Elijah:

²²The Lord will strike you with wasting disease, with fever and inflammation, with scorching heat and drought, and with blight and mildew; these will pursue you until you perish.

²⁵The Lord will cause you to be defeated before your enemies. You will march out against them in one direction but flee from them in seven. You will be an object of horror to all the kingdoms of the earth.

¹⁵⁶Great are Your mercies, O Lord; revive me according to Your ordinances.

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.

¹³David answered Gad, “I am deeply distressed. Please, let me fall into the hand of the Lord, for His mercies are very great; but do not let me fall into the hands of men.”

²So he prayed to the Lord, saying, “O Lord, is this not what I said while I was still in my own country? This is why I was so quick to flee toward Tarshish. I knew that You are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger, abounding in loving devotion—One who relents from sending disaster.

⁴¹He delivered them into the hand of the nations, and those who hated them ruled over them.

⁴²Their enemies oppressed them and subdued them under their hand.

¹⁵But You, O Lord, are a compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in loving devotion and faithfulness.

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

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.

⁸Then I looked and saw a pale green horse. Its rider’s name was Death, and Hades followed close behind. And they were given authority over a fourth of the earth, to kill by sword, by famine, by plague, and by the beasts of the earth.

³⁶Then 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!

⁷Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places.

²³When the Lord passes through to strike down the Egyptians, He will see the blood on the top and sides of the doorframe and will pass over that doorway; so He will not allow the destroyer to enter your houses and strike you down.

¹³So rend your hearts and not your garments, and return to the Lord your God. For He is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger, abounding in loving devotion. And He relents from sending disaster.

¹⁴Who knows? He may turn and relent and leave a blessing behind Him—grain and drink offerings for the Lord your God.

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!

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

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.

¹¹“I regret that I have made Saul king, for he has turned away from following Me and has not carried out My instructions.” And Samuel was distressed and cried out to the Lord all that night.

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.

¹⁷And David said to God, “Was it not I who gave the order to count the people? I am the one who has sinned and acted wickedly. But these sheep, what have they done? O Lord my God, please let Your hand fall upon me and my father’s house, but do not let this plague remain upon Your people.”

¹A Maskil of Asaph. Why have You rejected us forever, O God? Why does Your anger smolder against the sheep of Your pasture?

¹⁰After David had numbered the troops, his conscience was stricken and he said to the Lord, “I have sinned greatly in what I have done. Now, O Lord, I beg You to take away the iniquity of Your servant, for I have acted very foolishly.”

⁶Therefore I despise myself, and I repent in dust and ashes.”

²³I will appoint over them one shepherd, My servant David, and he will feed them. He will feed them and be their shepherd.

²⁴I, the Lord, will be their God, and My servant David will be a prince among them. I, the Lord, have spoken.

⁵Then I said: “Woe is me, for I am ruined, because I am a man of unclean lips dwelling among a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of Hosts.”

¹⁸Then the angel of the Lord ordered Gad to tell David to go up and build an altar to the Lord on the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite.

¹⁹So David went up at the word that Gad had spoken in the name of the Lord.

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

⁸By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, without knowing where he was going.

²²So Noah did everything precisely as God had commanded him.

¹⁹So David went up at the word that Gad had spoken in the name of the Lord.

²⁰Early in the morning they got up and left for the Wilderness of Tekoa. As they set out, Jehoshaphat stood up and said, “Hear me, O people of Judah and Jerusalem. Believe in the Lord your God, and you will be upheld; believe in His prophets, and you will succeed.”

¹⁶But they mocked the messengers of God, despising His words and scoffing at His prophets, until the wrath of the Lord against His people was stirred up beyond remedy.

²⁶But they were disobedient and rebelled against You; they flung Your law behind their backs. They killed Your prophets, who had admonished them to return to You. They committed terrible blasphemies.

⁸Mephibosheth bowed down and said, “What is your servant, that you should show regard for a dead dog like me?”

¹⁰At this, she fell on her face, bowing low to the ground, and said to him, “Why have I found such favor in your eyes that you should take notice of me, even though I am a foreigner?”

²And Abraham looked up and saw three men standing nearby. When he saw them, he ran from the entrance of his tent to meet them and bowed low to the ground.

²⁰Now Ornan was threshing wheat when he turned and saw the angel; and his four sons who were with him hid themselves.

²¹David came to Ornan, and when Ornan looked out and saw David, he left the threshing floor and bowed facedown before David.

²²Then David said to Ornan, “Grant me the site of this threshing floor, that I may build an altar to the Lord. Sell it to me for the full price, so that the plague upon the people may be halted.”

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,

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.”

⁸“If you are willing for me to bury my dead,” he said to them, “listen to me, and approach Ephron son of Zohar on my behalf

⁹to sell me the cave of Machpelah that belongs to him; it is at the end of his field. Let him sell it to me in your presence for full price, so that I may have a burial site.”

³So David asked the Gibeonites, “What shall I do for you? How can I make amends so that you may bless the inheritance of the Lord?”

⁴The Gibeonites said to him, “We need no silver or gold from Saul or his house, nor should you put to death anyone in Israel for us.” “Whatever you ask, I will do for you,” he replied.

³⁰But Phinehas stood and intervened, and the plague was restrained.

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.

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.

¹¹“No, my lord. Listen to me. I give you the field, and I give you the cave that is in it. I give it to you in the presence of my people. Bury your dead.”

²²Then David said to Ornan, “Grant me the site of this threshing floor, that I may build an altar to the Lord. Sell it to me for the full price, so that the plague upon the people may be halted.”

⁴⁰For on My holy mountain, the high mountain of Israel, declares the Lord God, there the whole house of Israel, all of them, will serve Me in the land. There I will accept them and will require your offerings and choice gifts, along with all your holy sacrifices.

⁴¹When I bring you from the peoples and gather you from the lands to which you have been scattered, I will accept you as a pleasing aroma. And I will show My holiness through you in the sight of the nations.

⁷All the flocks of Kedar will be gathered to you; the rams of Nebaioth will serve you and go up on My altar with acceptance; I will adorn My glorious house.

³May He remember all your gifts and look favorably on your burnt offerings. Selah

⁴May He give you the desires of your heart and make all your plans succeed.

¹⁶Your sons will succeed your fathers; you will make them princes throughout the land.

⁸But a noble man makes honorable plans; he stands up for worthy causes.

⁸So now, take seven bulls and seven rams, go to My servant Job, and sacrifice a burnt offering for yourselves. Then My servant Job will pray for you, for I will accept his prayer and not deal with you according to your folly. For you have not spoken accurately about Me, as My servant Job has.”

⁹So Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite went and did as the Lord had told them; and the Lord accepted Job’s prayer.

²⁴“No,” replied King David, “I insist on paying the full price, for I will not take for the Lord what belongs to you, nor will I offer burnt offerings that cost me nothing.”

²⁵So David paid Ornan six hundred shekels of gold for the site.

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.

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.”

¹⁷Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Carefully consider what is right in the eyes of everybody.

¹Then David said, “Here shall be the house of the Lord God, as well as the altar of burnt offering for Israel.”

¹⁴And they buried the bones of Saul and his son Jonathan in Zela in the land of Benjamin, in the tomb of Saul’s father Kish. After they had done everything the king had commanded, God answered their prayers for the land.

³²Even if He causes grief, He will show compassion according to His abundant loving devotion.

³³For He does not willingly afflict or grieve the sons of men.

²⁰Then Noah built an altar to the Lord. And taking from every kind of clean animal and clean bird, he offered burnt offerings on the altar.

¹⁷Then he would return to Ramah because his home was there, and there he judged Israel and built an altar to the Lord.

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

²⁷Then the Lord spoke to the angel, who put his sword back into its sheath.

⁹When they arrived at the place God had designated, Abraham built the altar there and arranged the wood. He bound his son Isaac and placed him on the altar, atop the wood.