21
1 Then David came
to Nob to Ahimelech
the priest. Ahimelech came
to meet David trembling, and said
to him, “Why are
you alone, and
no man with you?”
2 David said
to Ahimelech the
priest, “The king
has commanded me to do something,
and has said to me,
‘Let no one know anything about
the business about
which I send you,
and what I
have commanded you.
I have sent
the young men to
a certain place.’
3 Now
therefore what
is under your hand? Please
give me five loaves
of bread in
my hand, or whatever
is available.”
4 The priest
answered David, and said, “I
have no common
bread, but there
is holy bread;
if only the
young men have
kept themselves
from women.”
5 David
answered the
priest, and said
to him, “Truly,
women have been
kept from us
as usual these three days.
When I came
out, the vessels
of the young
men were holy,
though it was
only a
common journey. How
much more
then today shall
their vessels be
holy?”
6 So
the priest gave
him holy bread;
for there was
no bread there but
the show bread
that was taken
from before the
LORD, to
be replaced with hot bread
in the day
when it was
taken away.
7 Now
a certain man of
the servants
of Saul was there
that day, detained
before the LORD;
and his name
was Doeg the Edomite,
the best of
the herdsmen who
belonged to Saul.
8 David said
to Ahimelech, “Isn’t there
here under
your hand spear or sword?
For I haven’t
brought my sword
or my weapons with
me, because the
king’s business required haste.”
9 The priest
said, “Behold, the
sword of Goliath
the Philistine, whom
you killed in
the valley of Elah,
is here wrapped in
a cloth behind the ephod.
If you would
like to take
that, take it,
for there is
no other except
that here.”
David said, “There
is none like
that. Give it
to me.”
10 David arose
and fled that day
for fear of Saul,
and went to Achish
the king of Gath.
11 The
servants of Achish said
to him, “Isn’t
this David the
king of the
land? Didn’t they sing
to one another
about him
in dances, saying,
‘Saul has slain
his thousands,
and David his
ten thousands’?”
12 David
laid up these words
in his heart, and
was very afraid
of Achish the king
of Gath.
13 He changed
his behavior before
them and pretended
to be insane in
their hands, and scribbled
on the doors of
the gate, and let
his spittle fall down
on his beard.
14 Then Achish
said to his servants, “Look, you see the
man is insane. Why
then have you
brought him to
me?
15 Do
I lack madmen,
that you have
brought this
fellow to play the
madman in
my presence? Should
this fellow come
into my house?”