1 Samuel 21:1–6

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 with you?”

²David said to Ahimelech the priest, “The king has commissioned 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 commissioned you; and I have directed the young men to a certain place.’

³“Now therefore, what ¹do you have on hand? Give ²me five loaves of bread, or whatever can be found.”

⁴The 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.”

⁵David 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 the Lord, in order to put hot bread in its place when it was taken away.