Immerse: Chronicles Full Volume - Flipbook - Page 49
1C
| 21:16–22:1
C hronicles – E Z R A – N E H E M I A H
37
was preparing to destroy it, the Lord relented and said to the death angel,
“Stop! That is enough!” At that moment the angel of the Lord was standing by the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebus ite.
Dav id looked up and saw the angel of the Lord standing between
heaven and earth with his sword drawn, reaching out over Jerusalem. So
David and the leaders of Israel put on burlap to show their deep distress
and fell face down on the ground. And David said to God, “I am the one
who called for the census! I am the one who has sinned and done wrong!
But these people are as innocent as s heep—what have they done? O Lord
my God, let your anger fall against me and my family, but do not destroy
your people.”
Then the angel of the Lord told Gad to instruct David to go up and
build an altar to the Lord on the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite.
So David went up to do what the Lord had commanded him through
Gad. Araunah, who was busy threshing wheat at the time, turned and saw
the angel there. His four sons, who were with him, ran away and hid. When
Araunah saw David approaching, he left his threshing floor and bowed
before David with his face to the ground.
David said to Araunah, “Let me buy this threshing floor from you at its
full price. Then I will build an altar to the Lord there, so that he will stop
the plague.”
“Take it, my lord the king, and use it as you wish,” Araunah said to Da
vid. “I will give the oxen for the burnt offerings, and the threshing boards
for wood to build a fire on the altar, and the wheat for the grain offering.
I will give it all to you.”
But King David replied to Araunah, “No, I insist on buying it for the full
price. I will not take what is yours and give it to the Lord. I will not pre
sent burnt offerings that have cost me nothing!” So David gave Araunah
600 pieces of gold in payment for the threshing floor.
David built an altar there to the Lord and sacrificed burnt offerings
and peace offerings. And when David prayed, the Lord answered him
by sending fire from heaven to burn up the offering on the altar. Then the
Lord spoke to the angel, who put the sword back into its sheath.
When David saw that the Lord had answered his prayer, he offered
sacrifices there at Araunah’s threshing floor. At that time the Tabernacle
of the Lord and the altar of burnt offering that Moses had made in the
wilderness were located at the place of worship in Gibeon. But David was
not able to go there to inquire of God, because he was terrified by the
drawn sword of the angel of the Lord.
Then David said, “This will be the location for the Temple of the Lord
God and the place of the altar for Israel’s burnt offerings!”
ImmerseChronicles_NLT.indd 37
6/21/2017 10:01:28 AM
