16David lifted up his eyes, and saw the angel of Yahweh 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.
17David said to God, Isn`t it I who commanded the people to be numbered? It is even I who have sinned and done very wickedly; but these sheep, what have they done? Please let your hand, O Yahweh my God, be against me, and against my father`s house; but not against your people, that they should be plagued.
18Then the angel of Yahweh commanded Gad to tell David, that David should go up, and raise an altar to Yahweh in the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite.
19David went up at the saying of Gad, which he spoke in the name of Yahweh.
20Ornan turned back, and saw the angel; and his four sons who were with him hid themselves. Now Ornan was threshing wheat.
21As 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.
22Then David said to Ornan, Give me the place of this threshing floor, that I may build thereon an altar to Yahweh: for the full price shall you give it me, that the plague may be stayed from the people.
