7 and came to the fortress of Tyre and all the cities of the Hivites and the Canaanites. Then they went out to the Negev of Judah at Beersheba.
8 They went about through all the land, and they came to Jerusalem at the end of nine months and twenty days.
9 Then Joab gave the number of the counting of the people to the king. Israel was eight hundred thousand valiant warriors wielding the sword, and the men of Judah were five hundred thousand.
10 The heart of David struck him after he had counted the people, and David said to Yahweh, “I have sinned greatly in what I have done! So then, O Yahweh, please forgive the guilt of your servant because I have acted very foolishly.”
11 When David got up in the morning, the word of Yahweh came to Gad the prophet, the seer of David, saying,
12 “Go and speak to David, ‘Thus says Yahweh, three things I am laying on you; choose for yourself one of them and I will do it to you.’ ”
13 Then Gad came to David, and he told him and said to him, “Shall seven years of famine in the land come to you? Or three months of your fleeing from your enemies while he is pursuing you? Or should there be three days of pestilence in your land? Now consider and decide what I must return to the one who sent me a word.”