1David came to Nob, to Ahimelech the priest, and Ahimelech trembled at meeting David and said to him, “Why are you alone, and no one is with you?”
2David 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 on which I am sending you and with which I have charged you.’ As for the young men, I have directed them to a certain place.
3Now then, what do you have on hand? Give me five loaves of bread, or whatever can be found.”
4The priest answered David and said, “There is no ordinary bread on hand, but there is holy bread—if only the young men have kept themselves from women.”
5David answered the priest and said to him, “Truly a woman has been kept from us, as yesterday and the day before, whenever I set out; the young men’s vessels are holy, even though it is an ordinary journey. How much more, then, today will it be holy in the vessel!”
6So the priest gave him the holy bread, for there was no bread there except the Bread of the Presence, which is removed from before Yahweh so that hot bread may be set out on the day it is taken away.
7Now a man of Saul’s servants was there that day, detained before Yahweh, and his name was Doeg the Edomite, the chief of Saul’s shepherds.
8David said to Ahimelech, “Is there not here on hand a spear or a sword? For I brought neither my sword nor my weapons with me, because the king’s matter was urgent.”
9The priest said, “The sword of Goliath the Philistine, whom you struck down in the Valley of Elah—here it is, wrapped in a cloth behind the ephod. If you would take that for yourself, take it, for there is no other but it here.” David said, “There is none like it; give it to me.”
10David arose and fled that day from before Saul, and he came to Achish king of Gath.
11The servants of Achish said to him, “Is this not David, the king of the land? Did they not sing of this one in the dances, saying: ‘Saul has struck down his thousands, and David his ten thousands’?”
12David took these words to heart and was very much afraid of Achish king of Gath.
13So he changed his behavior in their eyes and pretended to be mad in their hands; he scratched at the doors of the gate and let his spittle run down onto his beard.
14Achish said to his servants, “Look, you see the man is behaving like a madman. Why have you brought him to me?
15Do I lack madmen, that you have brought this one to rave in front of me? Shall this one come into my house?”
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