1 Samuel 21

1David came to Nob, to Ahimelech the priest. Ahimelech came trembling to meet David and said to him, “Why are you alone, with no one with you?”

2David said to Ahimelech the priest, “The king has given me a mission and told me, ‘No one is to know anything about the mission I am sending you on and the orders I have given you.’ As for the young men, I have told them to meet me at a certain place.

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

4The priest answered David, “I have no ordinary bread on hand, but there is holy bread, if only the young men have kept themselves from women.”

5David answered the priest, “Women have certainly been kept from us, as always when I go out on a campaign. The young men’s bodies are holy even on an ordinary journey. How much more today will they be holy!”

6So the priest gave him the holy bread, because there was no bread there except the bread of the Presence, which had been removed from before Yahweh to be replaced by hot bread on the day it was taken away.

7Now one of Saul’s servants was there that day, detained before Yahweh. His name was Doeg the Edomite, the chief of Saul’s herdsmen.

8David said to Ahimelech, “Do you have a spear or a sword here on hand? I did not bring my sword or my other weapons, because the king’s business was urgent.”

9The priest said, “The sword of Goliath the Philistine, whom you killed in the Valley of Elah, is here, wrapped in a cloth behind the ephod. If you want to take it, take it, for there is no other one here.” David said, “There is none like it. Give it to me.”

10That day David got up and fled from Saul and went to Achish king of Gath.

11But Achish’s servants said to him, “Is this not David, the king of the land? Is this not the one they sang about as they danced: ‘Saul has struck down his thousands, and David his tens of thousands’?”

12David took these words to heart and was very afraid of Achish king of Gath.

13So he changed his behavior in front of them and acted like a madman in their hands. He scribbled on the doors of the gate and let his saliva run down his beard.

14Achish said to his servants, “Look, you can see the man is insane! Why did you bring him to me?

15Am I short of madmen, that you have brought this fellow to rave in my presence? Should this man come into my house?”