1 Samuel 21
David Takes Consecrated Bread
1Then David came to aNob to Ahimelech the priest; and Ahimelech bcame trembling to meet David and said to him, “Why are you alone and no one with you?” 2David said to Ahimelech the priest, “The king has commissioned me with a matter and has said to me, ‘ cLet no one know anything about the matter on which I am sending you and with which I have commissioned you; and I have directed the young men to a certain place.’ 3“Now therefore, what ▼▼ Lit is under your hand?
do you have on hand? Give ▼▼ Lit in my hand
me five loaves of bread, or whatever can be found.” 4The priest answered David and said, “There is no ordinary bread ▼▼ Lit under my hand
on hand, but there is gconsecrated bread; if only the young men have hkept themselves from women.” 5David answered the priest and said to him, i“Surely women have been kept from us as previously when I set out and the jvessels of the young men were holy, though it was an ordinary journey; how much more then today will ▼▼ Lit it be holy in the vessel
their vessels be holy?” 6So lthe priest gave him consecrated bread; for there was no bread there but the mbread of the Presence which was removed from before the Lord, in order to put hot bread in its place when it was taken away. 7Now one of the servants of Saul was there that day, detained before the Lord; and his name was nDoeg the Edomite, the ochief of Saul’s shepherds. 8David said to Ahimelech, “Now is there not a spear or a sword ▼▼ Lit under your hand
on hand? For I brought neither my sword nor my weapons ▼▼ Lit in my hand
with me, because the king’s matter was urgent.” 9Then the priest said, r“The sword of Goliath the Philistine, whom you ▼▼ Lit smote
killed tin the valley of Elah, behold, it is wrapped in a cloth behind the ephod; if you would take it for yourself, take it. For there is no other except it here.” And David said, “There is none like it; give it to me.” 10Then David arose and fled that day from Saul, and went to uAchish king of Gath. 11But the vservants of Achish said to him, “Is this not David the king of the land? wDid they not sing of this one as they danced, saying, ‘Saul has slain his thousands,And David his ten thousands’?”
12David xtook these words ▼
▼ Lit in his
to heart and greatly feared Achish king of Gath. 13So he zdisguised his sanity before them, and acted insanely in their hands, and scribbled on the doors of the gate, and let his saliva run down into his beard. 14Then Achish said to his servants, “Behold, you see the man behaving as a madman. Why do you bring him to me? 15“Do I lack madmen, that you have brought this one to act the madman in my presence? Shall this one come into my house?”
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