New Revised Standard Version
David answered the priest, “Indeed 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?”

Contemporary English Version
"Of course we didn't sleep with women," David answered. "I never let my men do that when we're on a mission. They have to be acceptable to worship God even when we're on a regular mission, and today we're on a special mission."

New American Bible
David answered the priest: “We have indeed stayed away from women. In the past whenever I went out on a campaign, all the young men were consecrated—even for an ordinary campaign. All the more so are they consecrated with their weapons today!”

Douay-Rheims Bible
And David answered the priest, and said to him: Truly, as to what concerneth women, we have refrained ourselves from yesterday and the day before, when we came out, and the vessels of the young men were holy. Now this way is defiled, but it shall also be sanctified this day in the vessels.

And David answered the priest, and said to him: Truly, as to what concerneth women, we have refrained ourselves from yesterday and the day before, when we came out, and the vessels of the young men were holy. Now this way is defiled, but it shall also be sanctified this day in the vessels.

the vessels

Acts 9:15 And the Lord said to him: Go thy way: for this man is to me a vessel of election, to carry my name before the Gentiles and kings and the children of Israel.

1 Thessalonians 4:3,4 For this is the will of God, your sanctification: That you should abstain from fornication: . . .

2 Timothy 2:20,21 But in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and of silver, but also of wood and of earth: and some indeed unto honour, but some unto dishonour. . . .

1 Peter 3:17 For it is better doing well (if such be the will of God) to suffer than doing ill.

in a manner

Leviticus 24:9 And they shall be Aaron's and his sons', that they may eat them in the holy place: because it is most holy of the sacrifices of the Lord by a perpetual right.

Leviticus 8:26 And taking out of the basket of unleavened bread, which was before the Lord, a loaf without leaven, and a cake tempered with oil and a wafer, he put them upon the fat, and the right shoulder: