1 Samuel 21

¹1 Samuel 21:1. Then David came to Nob, to Ahimelech the priest. And when Ahimelech met David, he trembled and asked him, “Why are you alone? Why is no one with you?”²1 Samuel 21:2. “The king has given me a mission,” David replied. “He told me no one is to know about the mission on which I am sending you. And I have directed my young men to meet me at a certain place.³1 Samuel 21:3. Now then, what do you have on hand? Give me five loaves of bread, or whatever can be found.”⁴1 Samuel 21:4. “There is no common bread on hand,” the priest replied, “but there is some consecrated bread—provided that the young men have kept themselves from women.”⁵1 Samuel 21:5. David answered, “Women have indeed been kept from us, as is usual when I set out. And the bodies of the young men are holy even on common missions. How much more so today!”⁶1 Samuel 21:6. So the priest gave him the consecrated bread, since there was no bread there but the Bread of the Presence, which had been removed from before the LORD and replaced with hot bread on the day it was taken away.⁷1 Samuel 21:7. Now one of Saul’s servants was there that day, detained before the LORD. And his name was Doeg the Edomite, the chief shepherd for Saul.⁸1 Samuel 21:8. Then David asked Ahimelech, “Is there not a spear or sword on hand here? For I have brought neither my sword nor my weapons with me, because the king’s mission was urgent.”⁹1 Samuel 21:9. The priest replied, “The sword of Goliath the Philistine, whom you killed in the Valley of Elah, is here; it is wrapped in a cloth behind the ephod. If you want, you may take it. For there is no other but this one here.” And David said, “There is none like it; give it to me.”

¹⁰1 Samuel 21:10. That day David fled from Saul and went to Achish king of Gath.¹¹1 Samuel 21:11. But the servants of Achish said to him, “Is this not David, the king of the land? Did they not sing about him in their dances, saying: ‘Saul has slain his thousands, and David his tens of thousands’?”¹²1 Samuel 21:12. Now David took these words to heart and was very much afraid of Achish the king of Gath.¹³1 Samuel 21:13. So he changed his behavior before them and feigned madness in their hands; he scratched on the doors of the gate and let his saliva run down his beard.¹⁴1 Samuel 21:14. Then Achish said to his servants, “Look, you can see that the man is insane! Why have you brought him to me?¹⁵1 Samuel 21:15. Am I in need of madmen, that you have brought this man to rave in my presence? Must this man come into my house?”