The First of Samuel 21:1-15
21 David later came to Nob+ to A·himʹe·lech the priest. A·himʹe·lech began to tremble when he met David, and he said to him: “Why are you by yourself and no one is with you?”+
2 David replied to A·himʹe·lech the priest: “The king instructed me to do something, but he said, ‘Do not let anyone know anything about the mission on which I am sending you and about the instructions I have given you.’ I made an appointment with my young men to meet at a certain place.
3 Now if there are five loaves of bread at your disposal, just give them to me, or whatever is available.”
4 But the priest answered David: “There is no ordinary bread on hand, but there is holy bread+—provided that the young men have kept away from women.”*+
5 David answered the priest: “Women have certainly been kept away from us as on previous occasions when I went out on a campaign.+ If the bodies of the young men are holy even when the mission is ordinary, how much more so today should they be holy!”
6 So the priest gave him the holy bread,+ because there was no bread there except the showbread, which had been removed from Jehovah’s presence to be replaced by fresh bread on the day it was taken away.
7 Now one of Saul’s servants was there on that day, detained before Jehovah. His name was Doʹeg+ the Eʹdom·ite,+ the chief of Saul’s shepherds.
8 David then said to A·himʹe·lech: “Is there a spear or a sword here at your disposal? I did not take my own sword or my weapons with me, because the king’s mission was urgent.”
9 To this the priest said: “The sword of Go·liʹath+ the Phi·lisʹtine, whom you struck down in the Valley* of Eʹlah,+ is here, wrapped up in a cloth behind the ephʹod.+ If you want to take it for yourself, take it, because it is the only one here.” David said: “There is none like it. Give it to me.”
10 That day David rose up and continued his flight+ from Saul, and he eventually came to King Aʹchish of Gath.+
11 The servants of Aʹchish said to him: “Is this not David, the king of the land? Is he not the one they sang about when they danced, saying,‘Saul has struck down his thousands,And David his tens of thousands’?”+
12 David took these words to heart, and he became very much afraid+ of King Aʹchish of Gath.
13 So he disguised his sanity+ in their presence and acted insane while among them.* He was making marks on the doors of the gate and letting his saliva run down his beard.
14 Finally Aʹchish said to his servants: “You see that this man is crazy! Why bring him to me?
15 Do I have a shortage of crazy men that I need to have this one acting crazy before me? Should this man enter my house?”
