1 SamuelChapter 21

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¹David came to Nob, to Ahimelech the priest. When Ahimelech met David, he was shaking with fear. He asked him, "Why are you alone? Why isn't anyone with you?" ²"The king has given me a job to do," David answered. "He said to me, 'No one must know anything about the job I'm sending you to do.' And I have told my young men to meet me at a certain place. ³So now, what do you have here? Give me five loaves of bread, or whatever you can find." ⁴"I don't have any ordinary bread here," the priest answered. "But there is some holy bread. You may have it if the young men have kept away from women." ⁵David answered, "Yes, we have kept away from women, as we always do when I set out. The young men's bodies are kept holy even on ordinary trips. So they are surely holy today!" ⁶So the priest gave him the holy bread. There was no other bread there except the Bread of the Presence. It had been taken from before the LORD and replaced with hot bread on the day it was removed. ⁷Now one of Saul's servants was there that day. He was being kept there before the LORD. His name was Doeg the Edomite. He was Saul's head shepherd. ⁸David asked Ahimelech, "Don't you have a spear or a sword here? I didn't bring my sword or any weapons with me. The king's job was urgent." ⁹The priest answered, "The sword of Goliath the Philistine is here. You killed him in the Valley of Elah. It's wrapped in a cloth behind the ephod. If you want it, take it. There's no other sword here." David said, "There's none like it. Give it to me." ¹⁰That day David ran away from Saul. He went to Achish, the king of Gath. ¹¹But the servants of Achish said to him, "Isn't this David, the king of the land? Isn't he the one they sang about in their dances? They sang,
'Saul has killed his thousands,
and David his tens of thousands.'" ¹²David thought hard about these words. He was very afraid of Achish, the king of Gath. ¹³So he acted differently in front of them. While they held him, he pretended to be crazy. He scratched marks on the doors of the gate. He let spit run down his beard. ¹⁴Achish said to his servants, "Look, you can see the man is crazy! Why did you bring him to me? ¹⁵Do I need more crazy men? Is that why you brought this man to rave in front of me? Must this man come into my house?"