Study Desk

He said to them, "You are the leaders of the Levite families. You must purify yourselves and all your fellow Levites, so you can bring the Ark of the Lord , the God of Israel, to the place I have prepared for it.

So the priests and the Levites purified themselves in order to bring the Ark of the Lord , the God of Israel, to Jerusalem.

So the Levites appointed Heman son of Joel along with his fellow Levites: Asaph son of Berekiah, and Ethan son of Kushaiah from the clan of Merari.

So all Israel brought up the Ark of the Lord 's Covenant with shouts of joy, the blowing of rams' horns and trumpets, the crashing of cymbals, and loud playing on harps and lyres.

Cry out, "Save us, O God of our salvation! Gather and rescue us from among the nations, so we can thank your holy name and rejoice and praise you."

So Nathan went back to David and told him everything the Lord had said in this vision.

And may your name be established and honored forever so that everyone will say, ‘The Lord of Heaven's Armies, the God of Israel, is Israel's God!' And may the house of your servant David continue before you forever.

And now, it has pleased you to bless the house of your servant, so that it will continue forever before you. For when you grant a blessing, O Lord , it is an eternal blessing!"

Then he placed several army garrisons in Damascus, the Aramean capital, and the Arameans became David's subjects and paid him tribute money. So the Lord made David victorious wherever he went.

So David reigned over all Israel and did what was just and right for all his people.

David said, "I am going to show loyalty to Hanun because his father, Nahash, was always loyal to me." So David sent messengers to express sympathy to Hanun about his father's death. But when David's ambassadors arrived in the land of Ammon,

the Ammonite commanders said to Hanun, "Do you really think these men are coming here to honor your father? No! David has sent them to spy out the land so they can come in and conquer it!"

So Hanun seized David's ambassadors and shaved them, cut off their robes at the buttocks, and sent them back to David in shame.

The Arameans now realized that they were no match for Israel, so they sent messengers and summoned additional Aramean troops from the other side of the Euphrates River. These troops were under the command of Shobach, the commander of Hadadezer's forces.

After this, war broke out with the Philistines at Gezer. As they fought, Sibbecai from Hushah killed Saph, a descendant of the giants, and so the Philistines were subdued.

So David said to Joab and the commanders of the army, "Take a census of all the people of Israel—from Beersheba in the south to Dan in the north—and bring me a report so I may know how many there are."

But the king insisted that they take the census, so Joab traveled throughout all Israel to count the people. Then he returned to Jerusalem

But Joab did not include the tribes of Levi and Benjamin in the census because he was so distressed at what the king had made him do.

So Gad came to David and said, "These are the choices the Lord has given you.

So the Lord sent a plague upon Israel, and 70,000 people died as a result.