[1] Then David came to Nob, to Ahimelech the priest. And
Ahimelech came to meet David, trembling, and said to him, "Why
are you alone, and no one with you?" [2] And David said to
Ahimelech the priest, "The king has charged me with a matter and
said to me, 'Let no one know anything of the matter about which I
send you, and with which I have charged you.' I have made an
appointment with the young men for such and such a place. [3]
Now then, what do you have on hand? Give me five loaves of bread,
or whatever is here." [4] And the priest answered David, "I have no
common bread on hand, but there is holy bread—if the young men
have kept themselves from women." [5] And David answered the
priest, "Truly women have been kept from us as always when I go
on an expedition. The vessels of the young men are holy even when
it is an ordinary journey. How much more today will their vessels be
holy?" [6] So the priest gave him the holy bread, for there was no
bread there but the bread of the Presence, which is removed from
before the LORD, to be replaced by hot bread on the day it is taken
away.
[7] Now a certain man of the servants of Saul was there that
day, detained before the LORD. His name was Doeg the Edomite,
the chief of Saul's herdsmen.
[8] Then David said to Ahimelech, "Then have you not here
a spear or a sword at hand? For I have brought neither my sword nor my weapons with me, because the king's business required
haste." [9] And the priest said, "The sword of Goliath the
Philistine, whom you struck down in the Valley of Elah, behold, it
is here wrapped in a cloth behind the ephod. If you will take that,
take it, for there is none but that here." And David said, "There is
none |
