1 Samuel 21:1–7

David Takes Consecrated Bread

¹Then David came to ^aNob to Ahimelech the priest; and Ahimelech ^bcame trembling to meet David and said to him, “Why are you alone, and no one is with you?”

²And David said to Ahimelech the priest, “The king has commanded me with a matter and has said to me, ‘^aLet no one know anything about the matter on which I am sending you and with which I have commanded you; and I have directed the young men to a certain place.’

³“So now, what ¹do you have on hand? Give five loaves of bread into my hand, or whatever can be found.”

⁴And the priest answered David and said, “There is no ordinary bread ¹on hand, but there is ^aconsecrated bread; if only the young men have ^bkept themselves from women.”

⁵And David answered the priest and said to him, “^aSurely women have been kept from us as previously when I set out and the ^bvessels of the young men were holy, though it was an ordinary journey; how much more then today will ¹their vessels be holy?”

⁶So ^athe priest gave him consecrated bread; for there was no bread there but the ^bbread of the Presence which was removed from before Yahweh, in order to put hot bread in its place when it was taken away.

⁷Now one of the servants of Saul was there that day, detained before Yahweh; and his name was ^aDoeg the Edomite, the ^bchief of Saul’s shepherds.