David Takes the Consecrated Bread
(Matthew 12:1–8; Mark 2:23–28; Luke 6:1–5)

1And David came to Nob to Ahimelech the priest, and Ahimelech was afraid when he met David, and he said to him, “Why are you alone, and no man is with you?”

2And David said to Ahimelech the priest, “The king has ordered me on some business and said to me, ‘No man is to know anything about the business on which I send you, and about which I have commanded you.’ And I have directed the young men to such and such a place. 3And now, what have you on hand? Give five loaves of bread into my hand, or what is found.”

4And the priest answered David, and said, “There is no common bread to under my hand, but there is consecrated bread, if indeed the young men have kept themselves from women.”

5And David answered the priest and said to him, “Surely if women have been kept from us as yesterday and the day before yesterday when I came out, then the vessels of the young men are holy, and it is a common way; and also surely today it was sanctified in the vessel.”

6And the priest gave to him the consecrated bread, for there was no bread if but the Bread of the Presence, which is turned aside from the face of YHWH, to put hot bread in the day of its being taken away.

7And there was a man of the servants of Saul on that day detained before the face of YHWH, and his name was Doeg the Edomite, the chief of the shepherds who belonged to Saul.

David Flees to Gath
(Psalm 34:1–22; Psalm 56:1–13)

8And David said to Ahimelech, “And is there not here under your hand a spear or a sword? For even my sword and even my weapons I have not brought with me, for the matter of the king was urgent.”

9And the priest said, “The sword of Goliath the Philistine, whom you killed in the Valley of Elah, behold, it is wrapped in a cloth behind the ephod. If that you will take to you, take it, for there is no other except it in this place.”

And David said, “None is like it; give it to me.”

10And David arose and fled that day from before Saul, and he came to Achish the king of Gath. 11And the servants of Achish said to him, “Is not this David the king of the land? Did not of this one they sing in their dances, saying,

‘Saul has struck down his thousands,

and David his myriads?’”

12And David set these words in his heart, and he was exceedingly afraid of Achish king of Gath. 13And he changed his behavior before their eyes and feigned madness in their hands; and he scratched on the doors of the gate, and he let fall down his saliva on his beard.

14And Achish said to his servants, “Behold, you⁺ see the man is insane, why have you⁺ brought him to me? 15Am I lacking madmen, that you⁺ have brought this one to play the madman in my presence? Shall this one come into my house?”