1 Samuel 21

¹Then 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?”

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.

³Now then, what do you have on hand? Give [me] five [loaves of] bread, or whatever can be found.”

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.”

⁵David 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!”

⁶So 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.

⁷Now 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.

⁸Then 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.”

⁹The 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.”

¹⁰That day David fled from Saul and went to Achish king of Gath.

¹¹But 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 ’?”

¹²Now David took these words to heart and was very much afraid of Achish the king of Gath.

¹³So 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.

¹⁴Then Achish said to his servants, “Look, you can see [that] the man is insane! Why have you brought him to me?

¹⁵Am I in need of madmen, that you have brought this man to rave in my presence? Must this [man] come into my house?”