2 Samuel 23: 1 - 24: 25
| 1Now these are the last words of David. |
| David the son of Jesse says, |
| the man who was raised on high says, |
| the anointed of the God of Jacob, |
| the sweet psalmist of Israel: |
| 2“The LORD’s Spirit spoke by me. |
| His word was on my tongue. |
| 3The God of Israel said, |
| the Rock of Israel spoke to me, |
| ‘One who rules over men righteously, |
| who rules in the fear of God, |
| 4shall be as the light of the morning, when the sun rises, |
| a morning without clouds, |
| when the tender grass springs out of the earth, |
| through clear shining after rain.’ |
| 5Isn’t my house so with God? |
| Yet he has made with me an everlasting covenant, |
| ordered in all things, and sure, |
| for it is all my salvation and all my desire, |
| although he doesn’t make it grow. |
| 6But all the ungodly will be as thorns to be thrust away, |
| because they can’t be taken with the hand. |
| 7The man who touches them must be armed with iron and the staff of a spear. |
| They will be utterly burnt with fire in their place.” |
| 8These are the names of the mighty men whom David had: Josheb Basshebeth a Tahchemonite, chief of the captains; he was called Adino the Eznite, who killed eight hundred at one time. 9After him was Eleazar the son of Dodai the son of an Ahohite, one of the three mighty men with David, when they defied the Philistines who were there gathered together to battle, and the men of Israel had gone away. 10He arose and struck the Philistines until his hand was weary, and his hand froze to the sword; and the LORD worked a great victory that day; and the people returned after him only to take plunder. 11After him was Shammah the son of Agee a Hararite. The Philistines had gathered together into a troop, where there was a plot of ground full of lentils; and the people fled from the Philistines. 12But he stood in the middle of the plot and defended it, and killed the Philistines; and the LORD worked a great victory. 13Three of the thirty chief men went down, and came to David in the harvest time to the cave of Adullam; and the troop of the Philistines was encamped in the valley of Rephaim. 14David was then in the stronghold; and the garrison of the Philistines was then in Bethlehem. 15David longed, and said, “Oh that someone would give me water to drink from the well of Bethlehem, which is by the gate!” |
| 16The three mighty men broke through the army of the Philistines, and drew water out of the well of Bethlehem that was by the gate, and took it and brought it to David; but he would not drink of it, but poured it out to the LORD. 17He said, “Be it far from me, LORD, that I should do this! Isn’t this the blood of the men who risked their lives to go?” Therefore he would not drink it. The three mighty men did these things. |
| 18Abishai, the brother of Joab, the son of Zeruiah, was chief of the three. He lifted up his spear against three hundred and killed them, and had a name amongst the three. 19Wasn’t he most honourable of the three? Therefore he was made their captain. However he wasn’t included as one of the three. 20Benaiah the son of Jehoiada, the son of a valiant man of Kabzeel, who had done mighty deeds, killed the two sons of Ariel of Moab. He also went down and killed a lion in the middle of a pit in a time of snow. 21He killed a huge Egyptian, and the Egyptian had a spear in his hand; but he went down to him with a staff, and plucked the spear out of the Egyptian’s hand, and killed him with his own spear. 22Benaiah the son of Jehoiada did these things, and had a name amongst the three mighty men. 23He was more honourable than the thirty, but he didn’t attain to the three. David set him over his guard. 24Asahel the brother of Joab was one of the thirty: Elhanan the son of Dodo of Bethlehem, 25Shammah the Harodite, Elika the Harodite, 26Helez the Paltite, Ira the son of Ikkesh the Tekoite, 27Abiezer the Anathothite, Mebunnai the Hushathite, 28Zalmon the Ahohite, Maharai the Netophathite, 29Heleb the son of Baanah the Netophathite, Ittai the son of Ribai of Gibeah of the children of Benjamin, 30Benaiah a Pirathonite, Hiddai of the brooks of Gaash. 31Abialbon the Arbathite, Azmaveth the Barhumite, 32Eliahba the Shaalbonite, the sons of Jashen, Jonathan, 33Shammah the Hararite, Ahiam the son of Sharar the Ararite, 34Eliphelet the son of Ahasbai, the son of the Maacathite, Eliam the son of Ahithophel the Gilonite, 35Hezro the Carmelite, Paarai the Arbite, 36Igal the son of Nathan of Zobah, Bani the Gadite, 37Zelek the Ammonite, Naharai the Beerothite, armour bearers to Joab the son of Zeruiah, 38Ira the Ithrite, Gareb the Ithrite, 39and Uriah the Hittite: thirty-seven in all. |
| 1Again the LORD’s anger burnt 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, and said to him, “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 towards 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 towards 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 instruments 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. |
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