Study Desk

"For by You I can run at a troop of warriors; By my God I can leap over a wall.

"As for God, His way is blameless; The word of the LORD is refined; He is a shield to all who take refuge in Him.

"For who is God, except the LORD? And who is a rock, except our God?

"He trains my hands for battle, So that my arms can bend a bow of bronze.

"For You have encircled me with strength for battle; You have forced those who rose up against me to bow down under me.

The God who executes vengeance for me, And brings down peoples under me,

"Is my house not indeed so with God? For He has made an everlasting covenant with me, Properly ordered in all things, and secured; For will He not indeed make All my salvation and all my delight grow?

Now David's heart troubled him after he had counted the people. So David said to the LORD, "I have sinned greatly in what I have done. But now, LORD, please overlook the guilt of Your servant, for I have acted very foolishly."

"Go and speak to David, 'This is what the LORD says: "I am imposing upon you three choices; choose for yourself one of them, and I will do it to you."'"

So Gad came to David and told him, and said to him, "Shall seven years of famine come to you in your land? Or will you flee for three months before your enemies while they pursue you? Or shall there be three days of plague in your land? Now consider and see what answer I shall return to Him who sent me."

Then David said to Gad, "I am in great distress. Let us now fall into the hand of the LORD, for His mercies are great; but do not let me fall into human hands."

Araunah then said to David, "Let my lord the king take and offer up what is good in his sight. Look, here are the oxen for the burnt offering, the threshing sledges and the yokes of the oxen for the wood.

However, the king said to Araunah, "No, but I will certainly buy it from you for a price; for 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 shekels of silver.

Then David built there an altar to the LORD, and he offered burnt offerings and peace offerings. And the LORD responded to prayer for the land, and the plague was withdrawn from Israel.

So his servants said to him, "Have them search for a young virgin for my lord the king, and have her attend the king and become his nurse; and have her lie on your chest, so that my lord the king may keep warm."

So they searched for a beautiful girl throughout the territory of Israel, and found Abishag the Shunammite, and brought her to the king.

Now Adonijah the son of Haggith exalted himself, saying, "I will be king." So he prepared for himself chariots and horsemen, with fifty men to run before him.

"And as for you, my lord the king, the eyes of all Israel are upon you, to announce to them who shall sit on the throne of my lord the king after him.

"For he has gone down today and has sacrificed oxen and fattened steers and sheep in abundance, and has invited all the king's sons, the commanders of the army, and Abiathar the priest, and behold, they are eating and drinking in his presence; and they say, 'Long live King Adonijah!'

"Then you shall come up after him, and he shall come and sit on my throne, and he shall be king in my place; for I have appointed him to be ruler over Israel and Judah."