David and the Holy Bread
1 Then David came to
1Nob to
2Ahimelech the priest. And Ahimelech
3came 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
4holy bread—
5if 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
6the holy bread, for there was no bread there but the bread of the Presence,
7which 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
8Doeg 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,
9“The sword of Goliath the Philistine, whom you struck down in
10the 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 like that; give it to me. ”