¹⁸ And that day Gad came to David and said to him, Go up, and put up an altar to the Lord on the grain-floor of Araunah the Jebusite.

¹¹ And David got up in the morning; now the word of the Lord had come to the prophet Gad, David's seer, saying,

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.

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.