David

And David arose in the morning, and the word of the Lord came to Gad the prophet and the seer of David, saying:

Go, and say to David: Thus saith the Lord: I give thee thy choice of three things, choose one of them which thou wilt, that I may do it to thee.

And when Gad was come to David, he told him, saying: Either seven years of famine shall come to thee in thy land: or thou shalt flee three months before thy adversaries, and they shall pursue thee: or for three days there shall be a pestilence in thy land. Now therefore deliberate, and see what answer I shall return to him that sent me.

And David said to Gad: I am in a great strait: but it is better that I should fall into the hands of the Lord (for his mercies are many) than into the hands of men.

And David said to the Lord, when he saw the angel striking the people: It is I; I am he that have sinned, I have done wickedly: these that are the sheep, what have they done? let thy hand, I beseech thee, be turned against me, and against my father's house.

And Gad came to David that day, and said: Go up, and build an altar to the Lord in the thrashingfloor of Areuna the Jebusite.

And David went up according to the word of Gad which the Lord had commanded him.

And going out he worshipped the king, bowing with his face to the earth, and said: Wherefore is my lord the king come to his servant? And David said to him: To buy the thrashingfloor of thee, and build an altar to the Lord, that the plague, which rageth among the people, may cease.

And Areuna said to David: Let my lord the king take, and offer, as it seemeth good to him: thou hast here oxen for a holocaust, and the wain, and the yokes of the oxen for wood.

And the king answered him, and said: Nay, but I will buy it of thee, at a price, and I will not offer to the Lord my God holocausts free cost. So David bought the floor, and the oxen, for fifty sicles of silver:

And David built there an altar to the Lord, and offered holocausts and peace offerings: and the Lord became merciful to the land, and the plague was stayed from Israel.

Now king David was old, and advanced in years: and when he was covered with clothes he was not warm.

But Sadoc, the priest, and Banaias, the son of Joiada, and Nathan, the prophet, and Semei, and Rei, and the strength of David's army, was not with Adonias.

And Nathan said to Bethsabee, the mother of Solomon: Hast thou not heard that Adonias, the son of Haggith, reigneth, and our lord David knoweth it not?

Go, and get thee in to king David, and say to him: Didst not thou, my lord, O king, swear to me, thy handmaid, saying: Solomon, thy son, shall reign after me, and he shall sit on my throne? why then doth Adonias reign?

And king David answered, and said: Call to me Bethsabee. And when she was come in to the king, and stood before him,

And Bethsabee, bowing with her face to the earth, worshipped the king, saying: May my lord David live for ever.

King David also said: Call me Sadoc, the priest, and Nathan, the prophet, and Banaias, the son of Joiada. And when they were come in before the king,

As the Lord hath been with my lord the king, so be he with Solomon, and make his throne higher than the throne of my lord king David.

So Sadoc, the priest, and Nathan, the prophet, went down, and Banaias, the son of Joiada, and the Cerethi, and Phelethi: and they set Solomon upon the mule of king David, and brought him to Gihon.

And Jonathan answered Adonias: Not so: for our lord, king David, hath appointed Solomon king;

And the king's servants going in, have blessed our lord king David, saying: May God make the name of Solomon greater than thy name, and make his throne greater than thy throne. And the king adored in his bed:

And the days of David drew nigh that he should die, and he charged his son Solomon, saying:

So David slept with his fathers, and was buried in the city of David.

And the days that David reigned in Israel, were forty years: in Hebron he reigned seven years, in Jerusalem thirty-three.