16. David lifted up his eyes, and saw the Lord’s angel standing between earth and the sky, having a drawn sword in his hand stretched out over Jerusalem.Then David and the elders, clothed in sackcloth, fell on their faces.
17. David said to God, “Isn’t it I who commanded the people to be counted? It is even I who have sinned and done very wickedly; but these sheep, what have they done? Please let your hand, O Lord my God, be against me, and against my father’s house; but not against your people, that they should be plagued.”
18. Then the Lord’s angel commanded Gad to tell David that David should go up and raise an altar to the Lord on the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite.
19. David went up at the saying of Gad, which he spoke in the Lord’s name.
20. Ornan turned back, and saw the angel; and his four sons who were with him hid themselves. Now Ornan was threshing wheat.
21. As David came to Ornan, Ornan looked and saw David, and went out of the threshing floor, and bowed himself to David with his face to the ground.
22. Then David said to Ornan, “Give me the place of this threshing floor, that I may build an altar to the Lord on it. You shall sell it to me for the full price, that the plague may be stopped from afflicting the people.”
23. Ornan said to David, “Take it for yourself, and let my lord the king do that which is good in his eyes. Behold, I give the oxen for burnt offerings, and the threshing instruments for wood, and the wheat for the meal offering. I give it all.”
24. King David said to Ornan, “No; but I will most certainly buy it for the full price. For I will not take that which is yours for the Lord, nor offer a burnt offering that costs me nothing.”