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1 David went to the priest Ahimelech at Nob. Ahimelech was trembling as he went to meet David. |Why are you alone?| he asked David. |Why is no one with you?| 2 |The king ordered me to do something,| David answered the priest Ahimelech, |and he told me, 'No one must know anything about this mission I'm sending you on and about the orders I've given you. I've stationed my young men at a certain place.' | 3 [David added,] |Now, what do you have [to eat]? Give me five loaves of bread or whatever you can find.| 4 |I don't have any ordinary bread,| the chief priest answered David. |But there is holy bread for the young men if they haven't had sexual intercourse [today].| 5 David answered the priest, |Of course women have been kept away from us as usual when we go [on a mission]. The young men's bodies are kept holy even on ordinary campaigns. How much more then will their bodies be holy today?| 6 So the priest gave him holy [bread] because he only had the bread of the presence which had been taken from the LORD's presence and replaced with warm bread that day. 7 That same day one of Saul's servants who was obligated to stay in the LORD's presence was there. His name was Doeg. A foreman for Saul's shepherds, he was from Edom. 8 David asked Ahimelech, |Don't you have a spear or a sword here? I didn't take either my spear or any other weapon because the king's business was urgent.| 9 The chief priest answered, |The sword of Goliath the Philistine, whom you killed in the Elah Valley, is here. It is wrapped in a cloth behind the priestly ephod. If you want to take it, take it. There's no other weapon here.| David said, |There's none like it. Let me have the sword.| 1 Samuel 21:1-9, God's Word Translation. Copyright © 1995 by God's Word to the Nations.
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