²David answered him, “The king gave me a special order. He told me, ‘No one must know what I am sending you to do or what I told you to do.’ I told my men where to meet me. ³Now, what food do you have with you? Give me five loaves of bread or anything you find.”

⁴The priest said to David, “I don’t have any plain bread here, but I do have some holy bread. ⁿ You may eat it if your men have kept themselves from women.”

⁵David answered, “No women have been near us for days. My men always keep themselves holy, even when we do ordinary work. And this is especially true when the work is holy.”

⁶So the priest gave David the holy bread from the presence of God because there was no other. Each day the holy bread was replaced with hot bread.

⁷One of Saul’s servants happened to be there that day. He had been held there before the Lord. He was Doeg the Edomite, the chief of Saul’s shepherds.

⁸David asked Ahimelech, “Do you have a spear or sword here? The king’s business was very important, so I left without my sword or any other weapon.”

⁹The priest answered, “The sword of Goliath the Philistine, the one you killed in the Valley of Elah, is here. It is wrapped in a cloth behind the holy vest. If you want it, you may take it. There’s no other sword here but that one.”

David said, “There is no other sword like it. Give it to me.”

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Footnotes

nholy bread This was the bread that showed the people were in the presence of God. Normally only the priests ate this bread.