David's Census

¹Again the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel, and he incited David against them, saying, “Go, number Israel and Judah.” ²So the king said to Joab, the commander of the army,1 who was with him, “Go through all the tribes of Israel, from Dan to Beersheba, and number the people, that I may know the number of the people.” ³But Joab said to the king, “May the Lord your God add to the people a hundred times as many as they are, while the eyes of my lord the king still see it, but why does my lord the king delight in this thing?” ⁴But the king's word prevailed against Joab and the commanders of the army. So Joab and the commanders of the army went out from the presence of the king to number the people of Israel. ⁵They crossed the Jordan and began from Aroer,2 and from the city that is in the middle of the valley, toward Gad and on to Jazer. ⁶Then they came to Gilead, and to Kadesh in the land of the Hittites;3 and they came to Dan, and from Dan4 they went around to Sidon, ⁷and came to the fortress of Tyre and to all the cities of the Hivites and Canaanites; and they went out to the Negeb of Judah at Beersheba. ⁸So when they had gone through all the land, they came to Jerusalem at the end of nine months and twenty days. ⁹And Joab gave the sum of the numbering of the people to the king: in Israel there were 800,000 valiant men who drew the sword, and the men of Judah were 500,000.

The Lord's Judgment of David's Sin

¹⁰But David's heart struck him after he had numbered the people. And David said to the Lord, “I have sinned greatly in what I have done. But now, O Lord, please take away the iniquity of your servant, for I have done very foolishly.” ¹¹And when David arose in the morning, the word of the Lord came to the prophet Gad, David's seer, saying, ¹²“Go and say to David, ‘Thus says the Lord, Three things I offer5 you. Choose one of them, that I may do it to you.’” ¹³So Gad came to David and told him, and said to him, “Shall three6 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 consider, and decide what answer I shall return to him who sent me.” ¹⁴Then David said to Gad, “I am in great distress. Let us fall into the hand of the Lord, for his mercy is great; but let me not fall into the hand of man.”

¹⁵So the Lord sent a pestilence on Israel from the morning until the appointed time. And there died of the people from Dan to Beersheba 70,000 men. ¹⁶And when the angel stretched out his hand toward Jerusalem to destroy it, the Lord relented from the calamity and said to the angel who was working destruction among the people, “It is enough; now stay your hand.” And the angel of the Lord was by the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite. ¹⁷Then David spoke to the Lord when he saw the angel who was striking the people, and said, “Behold, I have sinned, and I have done wickedly. But these sheep, what have they done? Please let your hand be against me and against my father's house.”

David Builds an Altar

¹⁸And Gad came that day to David and said to him, “Go up, raise an altar to the Lord on the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite.” ¹⁹So David went up at Gad's word, as the Lord commanded. ²⁰And when Araunah looked down, he saw the king and his servants coming on toward him. And Araunah went out and paid homage to the king with his face to the ground. ²¹And Araunah said, “Why has my lord the king come to his servant?” David said, “To buy the threshing floor from you, in order to build an altar to the Lord, that the plague may be averted from the people.” ²²Then Araunah said to David, “Let my lord the king take and offer up what seems good to him. Here are the oxen for the burnt offering and the threshing sledges and the yokes of the oxen for the wood. ²³All this, O king, Araunah gives to the king.” And Araunah said to the king, “May the Lord your God accept you.” ²⁴But the king said to Araunah, “No, but I will buy it from you for a price. I will not offer burnt offerings to the Lord my God that cost me nothing.” So David bought the threshing floor and the oxen for fifty shekels7 of silver. ²⁵And David built there an altar to the Lord and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings. So the Lord responded to the plea for the land, and the plague was averted from Israel.

Sons and Heirs

¹I mean that the heir, as long as he is a child, is no different from a slave,1 though he is the owner of everything, ²but he is under guardians and managers until the date set by his father. ³In the same way we also, when we were children, were enslaved to the elementary principles2 of the world. ⁴But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, ⁵to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. ⁶And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” ⁷So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God.

Paul's Concern for the Galatians

⁸Formerly, when you did not know God, you were enslaved to those that by nature are not gods. ⁹But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how can you turn back again to the weak and worthless elementary principles of the world, whose slaves you want to be once more? ¹⁰You observe days and months and seasons and years! ¹¹I am afraid I may have labored over you in vain.

¹²Brothers,3 I entreat you, become as I am, for I also have become as you are. You did me no wrong. ¹³You know it was because of a bodily ailment that I preached the gospel to you at first, ¹⁴and though my condition was a trial to you, you did not scorn or despise me, but received me as an angel of God, as Christ Jesus. ¹⁵What then has become of your blessedness? For I testify to you that, if possible, you would have gouged out your eyes and given them to me. ¹⁶Have I then become your enemy by telling you the truth?4 ¹⁷They make much of you, but for no good purpose. They want to shut you out, that you may make much of them. ¹⁸It is always good to be made much of for a good purpose, and not only when I am present with you, ¹⁹my little children, for whom I am again in the anguish of childbirth until Christ is formed in you! ²⁰I wish I could be present with you now and change my tone, for I am perplexed about you.

Example of Hagar and Sarah

²¹Tell me, you who desire to be under the law, do you not listen to the law? ²²For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by a slave woman and one by a free woman. ²³But the son of the slave was born according to the flesh, while the son of the free woman was born through promise. ²⁴Now this may be interpreted allegorically: these women are two covenants. One is from Mount Sinai, bearing children for slavery; she is Hagar. ²⁵Now Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia;5 she corresponds to the present Jerusalem, for she is in slavery with her children. ²⁶But the Jerusalem above is free, and she is our mother. ²⁷For it is written,

“Rejoice, O barren one who does not bear;

break forth and cry aloud, you who are not in labor!

For the children of the desolate one will be more

than those of the one who has a husband.”

²⁸Now you,6 brothers, like Isaac, are children of promise. ²⁹But just as at that time he who was born according to the flesh persecuted him who was born according to the Spirit, so also it is now. ³⁰But what does the Scripture say? “Cast out the slave woman and her son, for the son of the slave woman shall not inherit with the son of the free woman.” ³¹So, brothers, we are not children of the slave but of the free woman.

Pharaoh to Be Slain

¹In the eleventh year, in the third month, on the first day of the month, the word of the Lord came to me: ²“Son of man, say to Pharaoh king of Egypt and to his multitude:

“Whom are you like in your greatness?

³Behold, Assyria was a cedar in Lebanon,

with beautiful branches and forest shade,

and of towering height,

its top among the clouds.1

⁴The waters nourished it;

the deep made it grow tall,

making its rivers flow

around the place of its planting,

sending forth its streams

to all the trees of the field.

⁵So it towered high

above all the trees of the field;

its boughs grew large

and its branches long

from abundant water in its shoots.

⁶All the birds of the heavens

made their nests in its boughs;

under its branches all the beasts of the field

gave birth to their young,

and under its shadow

lived all great nations.

⁷It was beautiful in its greatness,

in the length of its branches;

for its roots went down

to abundant waters.

⁸The cedars in the garden of God could not rival it,

nor the fir trees equal its boughs;

neither were the plane trees

like its branches;

no tree in the garden of God

was its equal in beauty.

⁹I made it beautiful

in the mass of its branches,

and all the trees of Eden envied it,

that were in the garden of God.

¹⁰“Therefore thus says the Lord God: Because it2 towered high and set its top among the clouds, and its heart was proud of its height, ¹¹I will give it into the hand of a mighty one of the nations. He shall surely deal with it as its wickedness deserves. I have cast it out. ¹²Foreigners, the most ruthless of nations, have cut it down and left it. On the mountains and in all the valleys its branches have fallen, and its boughs have been broken in all the ravines of the land, and all the peoples of the earth have gone away from its shadow and left it. ¹³On its fallen trunk dwell all the birds of the heavens, and on its branches are all the beasts of the field. ¹⁴All this is in order that no trees by the waters may grow to towering height or set their tops among the clouds, and that no trees that drink water may reach up to them in height. For they are all given over to death, to the world below, among the children of man,3 with those who go down to the pit.

¹⁵“Thus says the Lord God: On the day the cedar4 went down to Sheol I caused mourning; I closed the deep over it, and restrained its rivers, and many waters were stopped. I clothed Lebanon in gloom for it, and all the trees of the field fainted because of it. ¹⁶I made the nations quake at the sound of its fall, when I cast it down to Sheol with those who go down to the pit. And all the trees of Eden, the choice and best of Lebanon, all that drink water, were comforted in the world below. ¹⁷They also went down to Sheol with it, to those who are slain by the sword; yes, those who were its arm, who lived under its shadow among the nations.

¹⁸“Whom are you thus like in glory and in greatness among the trees of Eden? You shall be brought down with the trees of Eden to the world below. You shall lie among the uncircumcised, with those who are slain by the sword.

“This is Pharaoh and all his multitude, declares the Lord God.”

How Long, O Lord?

A Psalm of Asaph.

¹O God, the nations have come into your inheritance;

they have defiled your holy temple;

they have laid Jerusalem in ruins.

²They have given the bodies of your servants

to the birds of the heavens for food,

the flesh of your faithful to the beasts of the earth.

³They have poured out their blood like water

all around Jerusalem,

and there was no one to bury them.

⁴We have become a taunt to our neighbors,

mocked and derided by those around us.

⁵How long, O Lord? Will you be angry forever?

Will your jealousy burn like fire?

⁶Pour out your anger on the nations

that do not know you,

and on the kingdoms

that do not call upon your name!

⁷For they have devoured Jacob

and laid waste his habitation.

⁸Do not remember against us our former iniquities;1

let your compassion come speedily to meet us,

for we are brought very low.

⁹Help us, O God of our salvation,

for the glory of your name;

deliver us, and atone for our sins,

for your name's sake!

¹⁰Why should the nations say,

“Where is their God?”

Let the avenging of the outpoured blood of your servants

be known among the nations before our eyes!

¹¹Let the groans of the prisoners come before you;

according to your great power, preserve those doomed to die!

¹²Return sevenfold into the lap of our neighbors

the taunts with which they have taunted you, O Lord!

¹³But we your people, the sheep of your pasture,

will give thanks to you forever;

from generation to generation we will recount your praise.