15. So the Lord sent a plague on Israel from that very morning until the allotted time. Seventy thousand people died, from Dan to Beer-sheba.
16. But when the divine messenger stretched out his hand to destroy Jerusalem, the Lord regretted doing this disaster and said to the messenger who was destroying the people, "That’s enough! Withdraw your hand." At that time the Lord’s messenger was by the threshing floor of Araunah from Jebus.
17. When David saw the messenger who was striking down the people, he said, "I’m the one who sinned! I’m the one who has done wrong. But these sheep—what have they done wrong? Turn your hand against me and my household."
18. That same day Gad came to David and told him, "Go up and build an altar to the Lord on the threshing floor of Araunah from Jebus."
19. So David went up, following Gad’s instructions, just as the Lord had commanded.
20. Araunah looked up and saw the king and his servants approaching him. Araunah rushed out and bowed low before the king, his nose to the ground.
21. Araunah said, "Why has my master and king come to his servant?"David said, "To buy this threshing floor from you to build an altar to the Lord, so the plague among the people may come to an end."
22. Then Araunah said to David, "Take it for yourself, and may my master the king do what he thinks is best. Here are oxen for the entirely burned offering, and here are threshing boards and oxen yokes for wood.
23. All this, Your Majesty, Araunah gives to the king." Then he added, "May the Lord your God respond favorably to you!"
24. "No," the king said to Araunah. "I will buy them from you at a fair price. I won’t offer up to the Lord my God entirely burned offerings that cost me nothing." So David bought the threshing floor and the oxen for fifty shekels of silver.
25. David built an altar there for the Lord and offered entirely burned offerings and well-being sacrifices. The Lord responded to the prayers for the land, and the plague against Israel came to an end.