said to Hanun, “Do you think that David honours your father, in that he has sent comforters to you? Haven’t his servants come to you to search, to overthrow, and to spy out the land?” 4 So Hanun took David’s servants, shaved them, and cut off their garments in the middle at their buttocks, and sent them away. 5 Then some people went and told David how the men were treated. He sent to meet them; for the men were greatly humiliated. The king said, “Stay at Jericho until your beards have grown, and then return.”
6 When the children of Ammon saw that they had made themselves odious to David, Hanun and the children of Ammon sent one thousand talents† of silver to hire chariots and horsemen out of Mesopotamia, out of Aram-maacah, and out of Zobah. 7 So they hired for themselves thirty-two thousand chariots, and the king of Maacah with his people, who came and encamped near Medeba. The children of Ammon gathered themselves together from their cities, and came to battle. 8 When David heard of it, he sent Joab with all the army of the mighty men. 9 The children of Ammon came out, and put the battle in array at the gate of the city; and the kings who had come were by themselves in the field.
10 Now when Joab saw that the battle was set against him before and behind, he chose some of all the choice men of Israel, and put them in array against the Syrians. 11 The rest of the people he committed into the hand of Abishai his brother; and they put themselves in array against the children of Ammon. 12 He said, “If the Syrians are too strong for me, then you are to help me; but if the children of Ammon are too strong for you, then I will help you. 13 Be courageous, and let’s be strong for our people and for the cities of our God. May the LORD do that which seems good to him.”
14 So Joab and the people who were with him came near to the front of the Syrians to the battle; and they fled before him. 15 When the children of Ammon saw that the Syrians had fled, they likewise fled before Abishai his brother, and entered into the city. Then Joab came to Jerusalem.
16 When the Syrians saw that they were defeated by Israel, they sent messengers and called out the Syrians who were beyond the River,‡ with Shophach the captain of the army of Hadadezer leading them. 17 David was told that, so he gathered all Israel together, passed over the Jordan, came to them, and set the battle in array against them. So when David had put the battle in array against the Syrians, they fought with him. 18 The Syrians fled before Israel; and David killed of the Syrian men seven thousand charioteers and forty thousand footmen, and also killed Shophach the captain of the army. 19 When the servants of Hadadezer saw that they were defeated by Israel, they made peace with David and served him. The Syrians would not help the children of Ammon any more.
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1 At the time of the return of the year, at the time when kings go out, Joab led out the army and wasted the country of the children of Ammon, and came and besieged Rabbah. But David stayed at Jerusalem. Joab struck Rabbah, and overthrew it. 2 David took the crown of their king from off his head, and found it to weigh a talent of gold,† and there were precious stones in it. It was set on David’s head, and he brought very much plunder out of the city. 3 He brought out the people who were in it, and had them cut with saws, with iron picks, and with axes. David did so to all the cities of the children of Ammon. Then David and all the people returned to Jerusalem.
4 After this, war arose at Gezer with the Philistines. Then Sibbecai the Hushathite killed Sippai, of the sons of the giant; and they were subdued.
5 Again there was war with the Philistines; and Elhanan the son of Jair killed Lahmi the brother of Goliath the Gittite, the staff of whose spear was like a weaver’s beam. 6 There was again war at Gath, where there was a man of great stature, who had twenty-four fingers and toes, six on each hand and six on each foot; and he also was born to the giant. 7 When he defied Israel, Jonathan the son of Shimea, David’s brother, killed him. 8 These were born to the giant in Gath; and they fell by the hand of David and by the hand of his servants.
21
1 Satan stood up against Israel, and moved David to take a census of Israel. 2 David said to Joab and to the princes of the people, “Go, count Israel from Beersheba even to Dan; and bring me word, that I may know how many there are.”
3 Joab said, “May the LORD make his people a hundred times as many as they are. But, my lord the king, aren’t they all my lord’s servants? Why does my lord require this thing? Why will he be a cause of guilt to Israel?”
4 Nevertheless the king’s word prevailed against Joab. Therefore Joab departed and went throughout all Israel, then came to Jerusalem. 5 Joab gave the sum of the census of the people to David. All those of Israel were one million one hundred thousand men who drew a sword; and in Judah were four hundred and seventy thousand men who drew a sword. 6 But he didn’t count Levi and Benjamin amongst them, for the king’s word was abominable to Joab.
7 God was displeased with this thing; therefore he struck Israel. 8 David said to God, “I have sinned greatly, in that I have done this thing. But now put away, I beg you, the iniquity of your servant, for I have done very foolishly.”
9 The LORD spoke to Gad, David’s seer, saying, 10 “Go and speak to David, saying, ‘The LORD 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, “The LORD 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 of the sword of the LORD, even pestilence in the land, and the LORD’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 the LORD’s hand, for his mercies are very great. Don’t let me fall into man’s hand.”
14 So the LORD sent a pestilence on Israel, and seventy thousand men of Israel fell. 15 God sent an angel to Jerusalem to destroy it. As he was about to destroy, the LORD saw, and he relented of the disaster, and said to the destroying angel, “It is enough. Now withdraw your hand.” the LORD’s angel was standing by the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite. 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, “Sell 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.”
25 So David gave to Ornan six hundred shekels† of gold by weight for the place. 26 David built an altar to the LORD there, and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings, and called on the LORD; and he answered him from the sky by fire on the altar of burnt offering.
27 Then the LORD commanded the angel, and