¹Then came David to Nob to Ahimelech the priest; and Ahimelech came to meet David trembling, and said to him, “Why are you alone, and no one with you?” 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 have you at hand? Give me five loaves of bread, or whatever is here.” ⁴And the priest answered David, “I have no common bread at hand, but there is holy bread; if only the young men have kept themselves from women.” ⁵And David answered the priest, “Of a truth 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 a common journey; how much more today will their vessels be holy?” ⁶So the priest gave him the holy bread; for there was no bread there but the bread of the Presence, which 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 Doeg the Edomite, the chief of Saul’s herdsmen.

⁸And David said to Ahimelech, “And 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, “The sword of Goliath the Philistine, whom you killed in the 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.”

¹⁰And David rose and fled that day from Saul, and went to Achish the king of Gath. ¹¹And the servants of Achish said to him, “Is not this David the king of the land? Did they not sing to one another of him in dances,

‘Saul has slain his thousands, and David his ten thousands’?” ¹²And David took these words to heart, and was much afraid of Achish the king of Gath. ¹³So he changed his behavior before them, and feigned himself mad in their hands, and made marks on the doors of the gate, and let his spittle run down his beard. ¹⁴Then said Achish to his servants, “Lo, you see the man is mad; why then have you brought him to me? ¹⁵Do I lack madmen, that you have brought this fellow to play the madman in my presence? Shall this fellow come into my house?”

Chapter 22

¹David departed from there and escaped to the cave of Adullam; and when his brothers and all his father’s house heard it, they went down there to him. ²And every one who was in distress, and every one who was in debt, and every one who was discontented, gathered to him; and he became captain over them. And there were with him about four hundred men.

³And David went from there to Mizpeh of Moab; and he said to the king of Moab, “Pray let my father and my mother stay with you, till I know what God will do for me.” ⁴And he left them with the king of Moab, and they stayed with him all the time that David was in the stronghold. ⁵Then the prophet Gad said to David, “Do not remain in the stronghold; depart, and go into the land of Judah.” So David departed, and went into the forest of Hereth.

⁶Now Saul heard that David was discovered, and the men who were with him. Saul was sitting at Gibe-ah, under the tamarisk tree on the height, with his spear in his hand, and all his servants were standing about him. ⁷And Saul said to his servants who stood about him, “Hear now, you Benjaminites; will the son of Jesse give every one of you fields and vineyards, will he make you all commanders of thousands and commanders of hundreds, ⁸that all of you have conspired against me? No one discloses to me when my son makes a league with the son of Jesse, none of you is sorry for me or discloses to me that my son has stirred up my servant against me, to lie in wait, as at this day.” ⁹Then answered Doeg the Edomite, who stood by the servants of Saul, “I saw the son of Jesse coming to Nob, to Ahimelech the son of Ahitub, ¹⁰and he inquired of the Lord for him, and gave him provisions, and gave him the sword of Goliath the Philistine.”

¹¹Then the king sent to summon Ahimelech the priest, the son of Ahitub, and all his father’s house, the priests who were at Nob; and all of them came to the king. ¹²And Saul said, “Hear now, son of Ahitub.” And he answered, “Here I am, my lord.” ¹³And Saul said to him, “Why have you conspired against me, you and the son of Jesse, in that you have given him bread and a sword, and have inquired of God for him, so that he has risen against me, to lie in wait, as at this day?” ¹⁴Then Ahimelech answered the king, “And who among all your servants is so faithful as David, who is the king’s son-in-law, and captain over your bodyguard, and honored in your house? ¹⁵Is today the first time that I have inquired of God for him? No! Let not the king impute anything to his servant or to all the house of my father; for your servant has known nothing of all this, much or little.” ¹⁶And the king said, “You shall surely die, Ahimelech, you and all your father’s house.” ¹⁷And the king said to the guard who stood about him, “Turn and kill the priests of the Lord; because their hand also is with David, and they knew that he fled, and did not disclose it to me.” But the servants of the king would not put forth their hand to fall upon the priests of the Lord. ¹⁸Then the king said to Doeg, “You turn and fall upon the priests.” And Doeg the Edomite turned and fell upon the priests, and he killed on that day eighty-five persons who wore the linen ephod. ¹⁹And Nob, the city of the priests, he put to the sword; both men and women, children and sucklings, oxen, asses and sheep, he put to the sword.

²⁰But one of the sons of Ahimelech the son of Ahitub, named Abiathar, escaped and fled after David. ²¹And Abiathar told David that Saul had killed the priests of the Lord. ²²And David said to Abiathar, “I knew on that day, when Doeg the Edomite was there, that he would surely tell Saul. I have occasioned the death of all the persons of your father’s house. ²³Stay with me, fear not; for he that seeks my life seeks your life; with me you shall be in safekeeping.”

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