9. Yahweh spoke to Gad, David’s seer, saying,
10. “Go and speak to David, saying, ‘Yahweh says, “I offer you three things. Choose one of them, that I may do it to you.”’”
11. So Gad came to David, and said to him, “Yahweh says, ‘Take your choice:
12. either three years of famine; or three months to be consumed before your foes, while the sword of your enemies overtakes you; or else three days the sword of Yahweh, even pestilence in the land, and Yahweh’s angel destroying throughout all the borders of Israel. Now therefore consider what answer I shall return to him who sent me.’”
13. David said to Gad, “I am in distress. Let me fall, I pray, into Yahweh’s hand; for his mercies are very great. Don’t let me fall into man’s hand.”
14. So Yahweh sent a pestilence on Israel, and seventy thousand men of Israel fell.