1 Samuel 21

Revised Geneva Translation

21 Then David came to Nob, to Ahimelech the Priest. And Ahimelech was afraid upon meeting David, and said to him, “Why are you alone, and no man with you?”

² And David said to Ahimelech the Priest, “The king has commanded me a certain thing, and has said to me, ‘Let no man know where I send you, and what I have commanded you, and that I have appointed my servants to such and such places.’

³ “Now, therefore, if you have anything on hand, give me five cakes of bread or whatever there is present.”

⁴ And the Priest answered David, and said, “There is no common bread on hand, but here is hallowed bread, if the young men have kept themselves, at least from women.”

⁵ David then answered the Priest, and said to him, “Certainly women have been separated from us for these two or three days since I came out. And the vessels of the young men were holy, though the road was profane. And how much more, then, shall the vessel be sanctified this day?”

⁶ So the Priest gave him hallowed bread. For there was no bread there, except the showbread that was taken from before the LORD, to put hot bread there on the day that it was taken away.

⁷ And there was on the same day, one of the servants of Saul, abiding before the LORD, named Doeg the Edomite, the chief of Saul’s herdsmen.

⁸ And David said to Ahimelech, “Is there not here under your hand a spear or a sword? For I have neither brought my sword nor my harness with me, because the king’s business required haste.”

⁹ And 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 you will take that for yourself, take it. For there is nothing else except that here.” And David said, “There is nothing like it. Give it to me.”

¹⁰ And David arose and fled the same day from the presence of Saul and went to Achish, the king of Gath.

¹¹ And the servants of Achish said to him, “Is not this David, the king of the land? Did they not sing to him in dances, saying, ‘Saul has killed his thousand, and David his ten thousand?’”

¹² And David considered these words and was very afraid of Achish, the king of Gath.

¹³ And he changed his behavior before them, and feigned himself mad in their hands, and scratched on the doors of the gate, and let his spittle fall down upon his beard.

¹⁴ Then Achish said to his servants, “Lo, you see the man is beside himself. Why have you brought him to me?

¹⁵ “Have I need of mad men, that you have brought this fellow to play the mad man in my presence? Shall he come into my house?”