1 Samuel 21:1-9 ▼

1 And David came to Nob to Ahimelech the priest, and Ahimelech was afraid when he met David, and he said to him, “Why are you alone, and no man is with you?”

2 And David said to Ahimelech the priest, “The king has ordered me on some business and said to me, ‘No man is to know anything about the business on which I send you, and about which I have commanded you.’ And I have directed the young men to such and such a place.

3 And now, what have you on hand? Give five loaves of bread into my hand, or what is found.”

4 And the priest answered David, and said, “There is no common bread to under my hand, but there is holy bread, if indeed the young men have kept themselves from women.”

5 And David answered the priest and said to him, “Surely if women have been kept from us as yesterday and the day before yesterday when I came out, then the vessels of the young men are holy, and it is a common way; and also surely today it was sanctified in the vessel.”

6 And the priest gave to him holy bread, for there was no bread except for the Bread of the Presence, which is turned aside from the face of YHWH, to put hot bread in the day of its being taken away.

7 And there was a man of the servants of Saul on that day detained before the face of YHWH, and his name was Doeg the Edomite, the chief of the shepherds who belonged to Saul.

8 And David said to Ahimelech, “And is there not here under your hand a spear or a sword? For even my sword and even my weapons I have not brought with me, for the matter of the king was urgent.”

9 And the priest said, “The sword of Goliath the Philistine, whom you killed in the Valley of Elah, behold, it is wrapped in a cloth behind the ephod. If that you will take to you, take it, for there is no other except it in this place.” And David said, “None is like it; give it to me.”