9Then the word of the Lord came to Gad, David's seer, saying,
10Go and say to David, The Lord says, Three things are offered to you: say which of them you will have, so that I may do it to you.
11So Gad came to David and said to him, The Lord says, Take whichever you will:
12Three years when there will not be enough food; or three months of war, when you will go in flight before your haters, being in great danger of the sword; or three days of the sword of the Lord, disease in the land, and the angel of the Lord taking destruction through all the land of Israel. Now give thought to the answer I am to take back to him who sent me.
13And David said to Gad, This is a hard decision for me to make: let me come into the hands of the Lord, for great are his mercies: let me not come into the hands of men.
14So the Lord sent disease on Israel, causing the death of seventy thousand men.
15And God sent an angel to Jerusalem for its destruction: and when he was about to do so, the Lord saw, and had regret for the evil, and said to the angel of destruction, It is enough; do no more. Now the angel of the Lord was by the grain-floor of Ornan the Jebusite.