1 Samuel 21:2–9

²And 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. ³Now then, what do you have on hand? Give me five loaves of bread, or whatever is here.” ⁴And the priest answered David, “I have no common bread on hand, but there is ^yholy bread—^zif the young men have kept themselves from women.” ⁵And 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?” ⁶So the priest gave him ^ythe holy bread, for there was no bread there but the bread of the Presence, ^awhich is removed from before the Lord, to be replaced by hot bread on the day it is taken away.

⁷Now a certain man of the servants of Saul was there that day, detained before the Lord. His name was ^bDoeg the Edomite, the chief of Saul’s herdsmen.

⁸Then 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.” ⁹And the priest said, ^c“The sword of Goliath the Philistine, whom you struck down in ^dthe 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.”