2 Samuel 24:1-3

Living Bible

24 Once again the anger of the Lord flared against Israel, and he caused David to harm them by taking a national census. “Go and count the people of Israel and Judah,” the Lord told him.

² So the king said to Joab, commander-in-chief of his army, “Take a census of all the people from one end of the nation to the other, so that I will know how many of them there are.”

³ But Joab replied, “God grant that you will live to see the day when there will be a hundred times as many people in your kingdom as there are now! But you have no right to rejoice in their strength.”^[a]