David Numbers Israel and Judah

211 Now Satan, designing evil against Israel, put into David's mind the impulse to take the number of Israel. 2 And David said to Joab and the captains of the people, Now let all Israel, from Beer-sheba to Dan, be numbered; and give me word so that I may be certain of their number. 3 And Joab said, May the Lord make his people a hundred times more in number than they are; but, my lord king, are they not all my lord's servants? why would my lord have this done? why will he become a cause of sin to Israel? 4 But the king's word was stronger than Joab's. So Joab went out and went through all Israel and came to Jerusalem. 5 And Joab gave David the number of all the people; all the men of Israel, able to take up arms, were one million, one hundred thousand men; and those of Judah were four hundred and seventy thousand men, able to take up arms. 6 But Levi and Benjamin were not numbered among them, for Joab was disgusted with the king's order.

7 And God was not pleased with this thing; so he sent punishment on Israel. 8 Then David said to God, Great has been my sin in doing this; but now, be pleased to take away the sin of your servant, for I have done very foolishly. 9 Then the word of the Lord came to Gad, David's seer, saying, 10 Go 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. 11 So Gad came to David and said to him, The Lord says, Take whichever you will: 12 Three 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. 13 And 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. 14 So the Lord sent disease on Israel, causing the death of seventy thousand men. 15 And 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. 16 And David, lifting up his eyes, saw the angel of the Lord there between earth and heaven, with an uncovered sword in his hand stretched out over Jerusalem. Then David and the responsible men, clothed in haircloth, went down on their faces. 17 And David said to God, Was it not I who gave the order for the people to be numbered? It is I who have done the sin and the great wrong; but these are only sheep; what have they done? let your hand, O Lord God, be lifted up against me and against my family, but not against your people to send disease on them.

18 Then the angel of the Lord gave orders to Gad to say to David that he was to go and put up an altar to the Lord on the grain-floor of Ornan the Jebusite. 19 And David went up, as Gad had said in the name of the Lord. 20 And Ornan, turning back, saw the angel, and his four sons who were with him went to a secret place. Now Ornan was crushing his grain. 21 And when David came, Ornan, looking, saw him, and came out from the grain-floor and went down on his face to the earth before him. 22 Then David said to Ornan, Give me the place where this grain-floor is, so that I may put up an altar here to the Lord: let me have it for its full price; so that this disease may be stopped among the people. 23 And Ornan said to David, Take it, and let my lord the king do what seems right to him. See, I give you the oxen for burned offerings and the grain-cleaning instruments for fire-wood, and the grain for the meal offering; I give it all. 24 And King David said to Ornan, No; I will certainly give you the full price for it, because I will not take for the Lord what is yours, or give a burned offering without payment. 25 So David gave Ornan six hundred shekels of gold by weight for the place. 26 And David put up an altar there to the Lord, offering burned offerings and peace-offerings with prayers to the Lord; and he gave him an answer from heaven, sending fire on the altar of burned offering. 27 Then the Lord gave orders to the angel, and he put back his sword into its cover.

The Site for the Temple

28 At that time, when David saw that the Lord had given him an answer on the grain-floor of Ornan the Jebusite, he made an offering there. 29 For the House of the Lord, which Moses had made in the waste land, and the altar of burned offerings, were at that time in the high place at Gibeon. 30 But David was not able to go before it to get directions from the Lord, so great was his fear of the sword of the angel of the Lord.

221 Then David said, This is the house of the Lord God, and this is the altar for Israel's burned offerings.

David's Preparation for the Temple

2 And David gave orders to get together all the men from strange lands who were in the land of Israel; and he put stone-cutters to work, cutting stones for building the house of God. 3 And he got together a great store of iron, for the nails for the doors and for the joins; and brass, more in weight than might be measured; 4 And cedar-trees without number, for the Zidonians and the men of Tyre came with a great amount of cedar-trees for David. 5 And David said, Solomon my son is young and untested, and the house which is to be put up for the Lord is to be very great, a thing of wonder and glory through all countries; so I will make ready what is needed for it. So David got ready a great store of material before his death.

6 Then he sent for his son Solomon, and gave him orders for the building of a house for the Lord, the God of Israel. 7 And David said to Solomon, My son, it was my desire to put up a house for the name of the Lord my God. 8 But the word of the Lord came to me saying, You have taken lives without number and made great wars; I will not let you be the builder of a house for my name, because of the lives you have taken on the earth before my eyes. 9 But you will have a son who will be a man of rest; and I will give him rest from wars on every side. His name will be Solomon, and in his time I will give Israel peace and quiet; 10 He will be the builder of a house for my name; he will be to me a son, and I will be to him a father; and I will make the seat of his rule over Israel certain for ever. 11 Now, my son, may the Lord be with you; and may you do well, and put up the house of the Lord your God, as he has said of you. 12 Only may the Lord give you wisdom, and knowledge of his orders for Israel, so that you may keep the law of the Lord your God. 13 And all will go well for you, if you take care to keep the laws and the rules which the Lord gave to Moses for Israel: be strong and take heart; have no fear and do not be troubled. 14 Now see, poor though I am, I have got ready for the house of the Lord a hundred thousand talents of gold and a million talents of silver; and a weight of brass and iron greater than may be measured; and wood and stone have I made ready, and you may put more to it. 15 And you have a great number of workmen, cutters and workers of stone and wood, and experts in every sort of work, 16 In gold and silver and brass and iron more than may be numbered. Up! then, and to work; and may the Lord be with you.

17 Then David gave orders to all the chiefs of Israel to give their help to Solomon his son, saying, 18 Is not the Lord your God with you? and has he not given you rest on every side? for the Lord has given the people of the land into my hands, and the land is overcome before the Lord and before his people. 19 Now give your heart and soul to the worship of the Lord your God; and get to work on the building of the holy place of the Lord God, so that you may put the ark of the Lord's agreement and the holy vessels of God in the house which is to be made for the name of the Lord.

231 Now David was old and full of days; and he made his son Solomon king over Israel.

The Divisions and Duties of the Levites

2 And he got together all the chiefs of Israel, with the priests and the Levites. 3 And the Levites, all those of thirty years old and over, were numbered; and the number of them, by heads, man by man, was thirty-eight thousand. 4 Of these, twenty-four thousand were to be overseers of the work of the house of the Lord, and six thousand were judges and men of authority; 5 Four thousand were door-keepers; and four thousand gave praise to the Lord with the instruments which I made, said David, for giving praise. 6 And David put them into divisions under the names of the sons of Levi: Gershon, Kohath, and Merari. 7 Of the Gershonites: Ladan and Shimei. 8 The sons of Ladan: Jehiel the chief, and Zetham and Joel, three. 9 The sons of Shimei: Shelomoth and Haziel and Haran, three; these were the heads of the families of Ladan. 10 And the sons of Shimei: Jahath, Zizah and Jeush and Beriah; these four were the sons of Shimei. 11 Jahath was the chief and Zizah the second; but Jeush and Beriah had only a small number of sons, so they were grouped together as one family. 12 The sons of Kohath: Amram, Izhar, Hebron, and Uzziel, four. 13 The sons of Amram: Aaron and Moses; and Aaron was made separate and holy, he and his sons for ever, for the care of the most holy things and the burning of offerings before the Lord, to do his work and give blessings in his name for ever. 14 And the sons of Moses, the man of God, were put into the list of the tribe of Levi. 15 The sons of Moses: Gershom and Eliezer. 16 The sons of Gershom: Shebuel the first. 17 And the sons of Eliezer: Rehabiah the first; and Eliezer had no other sons, but Rehabiah had a great number. 18 The sons of Izhar: Shelomith the first. 19 The sons of Hebron: Jeriah the first, Amariah the second, Jahaziel the third, and Jekameam the fourth. 20 The sons of Uzziel: Micah the first, and Isshiah the second. 21 The sons of Merari: Mahli and Mushi; the sons of Mahli: Eleazar and Kish. 22 And at his death Eleazar had no sons, but only daughters, and their relations, the sons of Kish, took them as wives. 23 The sons of Mushi: Mahli and Eder and Jeremoth, three.

24 These were the sons of Levi, grouped by families, the heads of the families of those who were numbered by name, by heads, all those of twenty years old and over who did the work of the house of the Lord. 25 For David said, The Lord, the God of Israel, has given his people rest, and he has made his resting-place in Jerusalem for ever; 26 And from now, there will be no need for the House of the Lord, and the vessels used in it, to be moved about by the Levites. 27 So among the last acts of David was the numbering of the sons of Levi, from twenty years old and over. 28 Their place was by the side of the sons of Aaron in all the work of the house of the Lord, in the open spaces and in the rooms, in the making clean of all the holy things, in doing all the work of the house of the Lord, 29 The holy bread was in their care, and the crushed grain for the meal offering, of unleavened cakes or meal cooked over the fire or in water; they had control of all sorts of weights and measures; 30 They had to take their places every morning to give praise and make melody to the Lord, and in the same way at evening; 31 At every offering of burned offerings to the Lord, on Sabbaths, and at the new moons, and on the regular feasts, in the number ordered by the law, at all times before the Lord; 32 And they had the care of the Tent of meeting and the holy place, under the direction of the sons of Aaron their brothers, for the work of the house of the Lord.