16. When 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.

17. David 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."

18. Gad 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."

19. David went up according to the saying of Gad, as the LORD commanded.

20. Araunah 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.

21. Araunah 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."

22. Araunah 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.

23. All this, O king, does Araunah give to the king." Araunah said to the king, "May the LORD your God accept you."

24. The 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.

25. David 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.