1 Samuel 21

21 ¹ David came to Nob, to Ahimelech the priest. Ahimelech came trembling to meet David and asked him, "Why are you alone, with no one accompanying you?" ² David said to Ahimelech the priest, "The king has given me an order and told me, 'No one must know anything about the mission I am sending you on and what I have charged you to do.' As for my young men, I have directed them to a certain place. ³ Now then, what do you have on hand? Give me five loaves of bread, or whatever can be found."

⁴ The priest answered David, "I have no ordinary bread on hand; there is only holy bread—if the young men have kept themselves from women."

⁵ David answered the priest, "Indeed, women have been kept from us, as always when I set out. The young men's bodies are holy even on an ordinary journey; how much more so today will their bodies be holy?" ⁶ So the priest gave him the holy bread, since there was no bread there except the bread of the Presence, which had been removed from before our Father to be replaced by warm bread on the day it was taken away. ¹ 1 v6 The bread of the Presence was twelve loaves kept in the holy place before our Father and replaced each week; normally only the priests were allowed to eat it.

⁷ Now one of Saul's servants was there that day, detained before our Father; his name was Doeg the Edomite, the chief of Saul's shepherds.

⁸ David said to Ahimelech, "Don't you have a spear or a sword on hand? I brought neither my sword nor my weapons with me, because the king's business was urgent."

⁹ The priest said, "The sword of Goliath the Philistine, whom you struck down in the Valley of Elah—it is here, wrapped in a cloth behind the ephod. If you want to take it, take it, for there is no other here." David said, "There is none like it; give it to me."

David Flees to Gath

¹⁰ That day David got up and fled from Saul, and he went to Achish the king of Gath. ¹¹ But the servants of Achish said to him, "Isn't this David, the king of the land? Isn't he the one they sing about in their dances: 'Saul has struck down his thousands, and David his tens of thousands'?"

¹² David took these words to heart and was very much afraid of Achish the king of Gath. ¹³ So he changed his behavior before them and acted insane in their presence; he scratched marks on the doors of the gate and let his saliva run down his beard. ¹⁴ Achish said to his servants, "Look, you can see the man is insane! Why bring him to me? ¹⁵ Do I lack madmen, that you have brought this one to rave in front of me? Should this fellow enter my house?"