David and the Holy Bread

21 ^[a] Then David came to ^(A)Nob, to ^(B)Ahimelech the priest. And Ahimelech ^(C)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 ^(D)holy bread—^(E)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 ^(F)the holy bread, for there was no bread there but the bread of the Presence, ^(G)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 ^(H)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 Then answered ^(A)Doeg the Edomite, who stood by the servants of Saul, “I saw the son of Jesse ^(B)coming to Nob, to ^(C)Ahimelech the son of Ahitub, ^10 (D)and he inquired of the Lord for him and ^(E)gave him provisions and gave him the sword of Goliath the Philistine.”

¹¹ Then the king sent to summon Ahimelech the priest, the son of Ahitub, and all his father's house, the priests who were at Nob, and all of them came to the king. ¹² And Saul said, “Hear now, son of Ahitub.” And he answered, “Here I am, my lord.” ¹³ And Saul said to him, “Why have you conspired against me, you and the son of Jesse, in that you have given him bread and a sword and ^(F)have inquired of God for him, so that he has risen against me, ^(G)to lie in wait, as at this day?” ¹⁴ Then Ahimelech answered the king, “And who among all your servants is so faithful as David, who is the king's son-in-law, and captain over^[a] your bodyguard, and honored in your house? ¹⁵ Is today the first time ^(H)that I have inquired of God for him? No! Let not the king impute anything to his servant or to all the house of my father, for your servant has known nothing of all this, ^(I)much or little.” ¹⁶ And the king said, “You shall surely die, Ahimelech, you and all your father's house.” ¹⁷ And the king said to ^(J)the guard who stood about him, “Turn and kill the priests of the Lord, because their hand also is with David, and they knew that he fled and did not disclose it to me.” But the servants of the king would not put out their hand to strike the priests of the Lord. ¹⁸ Then the king said to Doeg, “You turn and strike the priests.” And Doeg the Edomite turned and struck down the priests, ^(K)and he killed on that day eighty-five persons who wore the linen ephod. ¹⁹ And Nob, the city of the priests, he put to the sword; ^(L)both man and woman, child and infant, ox, donkey and sheep, he put to the sword.

²⁰ But one of the sons of Ahimelech the son of Ahitub, named ^(M)Abiathar, escaped and fled after David.

^6 (A)When Abiathar the son of Ahimelech had fled to David to Keilah, he had come down with an ephod in his hand.

^7 (A)And David said to Abiathar the priest, the son of Ahimelech, “Bring me the ephod.” So Abiathar brought the ephod to David.