1 Chronicles 21:1

¹Again the LORD’s anger burned against Israel, and he moved David against them, saying, “Go, count Israel and Judah.” ²The king said to Joab the captain of the army, who was with him, “Now go back and forth through all the tribes of Israel, from Dan even to Beersheba, and count the people, that I may know the sum of the people.”

³Joab said to the king, “Now may the LORD your God add to the people, however many they may be, one hundred times; and may the eyes of my lord the king see it. But why does my lord the king delight in this thing?”

⁴Notwithstanding, the king’s word prevailed against Joab and against the captains of the army. Joab and the captains of the army went out from the presence of the king to count the people of Israel. ⁵They passed over the Jordan and encamped in Aroer, on the right side of the city that is in the middle of the valley of Gad, and to Jazer; ⁶then they came to Gilead and to the land of Tahtim Hodshi; and they came to Dan Jaan and around to Sidon, ⁷and came to the stronghold of Tyre, and to all the cities of the Hivites and of the Canaanites; and they went out to the south of Judah, at Beersheba. ⁸So when they had gone back and forth through all the land, they came to Jerusalem at the end of nine months and twenty days. ⁹Joab gave up the sum of the counting of the people to the king; and there were in Israel eight hundred thousand valiant men who drew the sword, and the men of Judah were five hundred thousand men.

¹⁰David’s heart struck him after he had counted the people. David said to the LORD, “I have sinned greatly in that which I have done. But now, the LORD, put away, I beg you, the iniquity of your servant; for I have done very foolishly.”

¹¹When David rose up in the morning, the LORD’s word came to the prophet Gad, David’s seer, saying, ¹²“Go and speak to David, ‘The LORD says, “I offer you three things. Choose one of them, that I may do it to you.”’”

¹³So Gad came to David, and told him, saying, “Shall seven years of famine come to you in your land? Or will you flee three months before your foes while they pursue you? Or shall there be three days’ pestilence in your land? Now answer, and consider what answer I shall return to him who sent me.”

¹⁴David said to Gad, “I am in distress. Let us fall now into the LORD’s hand, for his mercies are great. Let me not fall into man’s hand.”

¹⁵So the LORD sent a pestilence on Israel from the morning even to the appointed time; and seventy thousand men died of the people from Dan even to Beersheba. ¹⁶When the angel stretched out his hand toward Jerusalem to destroy it, the LORD relented of the disaster, and said to the angel who destroyed the people, “It is enough. Now withdraw your hand.” The LORD’s angel was by the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite.

¹⁷David spoke to the LORD when he saw the angel who struck the people, and said, “Behold, I have sinned, and I have done perversely; but these sheep, what have they done? Please let your hand be against me, and against my father’s house.”

¹⁸Gad came that day to David and said to him, “Go up, build an altar to the LORD on the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite.”

¹⁹David went up according to the saying of Gad, as the LORD commanded. ²⁰Araunah looked out, and saw the king and his servants coming on toward him. Then Araunah went out and bowed himself before the king with his face to the ground. ²¹Araunah said, “Why has my lord the king come to his servant?” David said, “To buy your threshing floor, to build an altar to the LORD, that the plague may be stopped from afflicting the people.”

²²Araunah said to David, “Let my lord the king take and offer up what seems good to him. Behold, the cattle for the burnt offering, and the threshing sledges and the yokes of the oxen for the wood. ²³All this, O king, does Araunah give to the king.” Araunah said to the king, “May the LORD your God accept you.”

²⁴The king said to Araunah, “No, but I will most certainly buy it from you for a price. I will not offer burnt offerings to the LORD my God which cost me nothing.” So David bought the threshing floor and the oxen for fifty shekels^[+] of silver. ²⁵David built an altar to the LORD there, and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings. So the LORD was entreated for the land, and the plague was removed from Israel.

¹He showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the LORD’s angel, and Satan standing at his right hand to be his adversary.

²⁰The LORD said, ‘Who will entice Ahab, that he may go up and fall at Ramoth Gilead?’ One said one thing, and another said another.

²¹A spirit came out and stood before the LORD, and said, ‘I will entice him.’

²²The LORD said to him, ‘How?’ He said, ‘I will go out and will be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets.’ He said, ‘You will entice him, and will also prevail. Go out and do so.’

⁴Satan answered the LORD, and said, “Skin for skin. Yes, all that a man has he will give for his life. ⁵But stretch out your hand now, and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will renounce you to your face.”

⁶The LORD said to Satan, “Behold, he is in your hand. Only spare his life.”

¹Again, on the day when God’s sons came to present themselves before the LORD, Satan came also among them to present himself before the LORD.

¹⁰I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, “Now the salvation, the power, and the Kingdom of our God, and the authority of his Christ has come; for the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down, who accuses them before our God day and night.

³¹The Lord said, “Simon, Simon, behold, Satan asked to have all of you, that he might sift you as wheat,

²During supper, the devil having already put into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon’s son, to betray him,

⁶Now on the day when God’s sons came to present themselves before the LORD, ^[+] Satan also came among them. ⁷The LORD said to Satan, “Where have you come from?” Then Satan answered the LORD, and said, “From going back and forth in the earth, and from walking up and down in it.”

⁸The LORD said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant, Job? For there is no one like him in the earth, a blameless and an upright man, one who fears God, and turns away from evil.”

⁹Then Satan answered the LORD, and said, “Does Job fear God for nothing? ¹⁰Haven’t you made a hedge around him, and around his house, and around all that he has, on every side? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his substance is increased in the land. ¹¹But stretch out your hand now, and touch all that he has, and he will renounce you to your face.”

¹²The LORD said to Satan, “Behold, ^[+] all that he has is in your power. Only on himself don’t stretch out your hand.” So Satan went out from the presence of the LORD.

²⁴Let’s consider how to provoke one another to love and good works,