1 Samuel
Chapter 21
1 David went to Nob to see Ahimelech the priest. Ahimelech was scared when he saw David and asked, “Why are you alone and no one is with you?”
2 David told Ahimelech the priest, “The king has given me a task and told me, ‘Don’t let anyone know about the task I’m sending you on, or what I’ve instructed you to do.’ I’ve told my men to meet at a certain place.”
3 What do you have to give me? Please give me five loaves of bread or whatever you have now.
4 The priest replied to David, “I don’t have any regular bread, only holy bread. The young men can have some if they have stayed away from women.”
5 David replied to the priest, “Honestly, we have not been near women for three days since I left. The young men’s belongings are clean, and even though the bread is ordinary, it is like it was made holy today.”
6 So the priest gave him sacred bread because only the special bread was there, which had been removed from God’s presence to be replaced with fresh bread on the day it was taken out.
7 A man who worked for Saul was there that day, held in God’s presence; his name was Doeg, an Edomite, and he was the top shepherd working for Saul.
8 David asked Ahimelech, “Do you have a spear or sword here? I didn’t bring mine because I had to hurry for the king’s task.”
9 The priest said, “Here is Goliath’s sword wrapped in cloth behind the vest. If you want it, take it, because it’s the only one here.” David replied, “There’s none like it; give it to me.”
10 David got up and ran away that day because he was afraid of Saul, and he went to Achish, the king of Gath.
11 Achish’s servants asked him, “Isn’t this David, the king of the country? Didn’t people sing about him in their dances, saying, ‘Saul has killed his thousands, and David his ten thousands’?”
12 David remembered these words and was very afraid of Achish, the king of Gath.
13 He acted differently around them, pretended to be crazy, scratched on the gate doors, and let drool run down his beard.
14 Then Achish said to his servants, “Look, you see the man is crazy: so why did you bring him to me?”
15 Do I need crazy people, that you bring this man to act crazy in front of me? Should this man enter my house?