Then 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 is with you?” 2 And David said to Ahimelech the priest, “The king has commanded me with a matter and has said to me, ‘^aLet no one know anything about the matter on which I am sending you and with which I have commanded you; and I have directed the young men to a certain place.’ 3 So now, what ¹do you have on hand? Give five loaves of bread into my hand, or whatever can be found.” 4 And the priest answered David and said, “There is no ordinary bread ¹on hand, but there is ^aconsecrated bread; if only the young men have ^bkept themselves from women.” 5 And David answered the priest and said to him, “^aSurely women have been kept from us as previously when I set out and the ^bvessels of the young men were holy, though it was an ordinary journey; how much more then today will ¹their vessels be holy?” 6 So ^athe priest gave him consecrated bread; for there was no bread there but the ^bbread of the Presence which was removed from before Yahweh, in order to put hot bread in its place when it was taken away.

7 Now one of the servants of Saul was there that day, detained before Yahweh; and his name was ^aDoeg the Edomite, the ^bchief of Saul’s shepherds.

8 And David said to Ahimelech, “Now is there not a spear or a sword ¹on hand? For I brought neither my sword nor my weapons in my hand because the king’s matter was urgent.” 9 Then the priest said, “^aThe sword of Goliath the Philistine, whom you struck down ^bin 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.”

10 Then David arose and fled that day from Saul and went to ^aAchish king of Gath. 11 But the ^aservants of Achish said to him, “Is this not David the king of the land? ^bDid they not sing of this one as they danced, saying,‘Saul has struck his thousands,And David his ten thousands’?” 12 And David ^atook these words ¹to heart and greatly feared Achish king of Gath. 13 So he ^adisguised his sanity in their sight and acted insanely in their hands and scribbled on the doors of the gate and let his saliva run down into his beard. 14 Then 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 before me? Shall this one come into my house?”