David and the Holy Bread

21 ^[a] Then came David to Nob to Ahim′elech the priest; and Ahim′elech came to meet David trembling, and said to him, “Why are you alone, and no one with you?” ² And David said to Ahim′elech the priest, “The king has charged me with a matter, and said to me, ‘Let no one know anything of the matter about which I send you, and with which I have charged you.’ I have made an appointment with the young men for such and such a place. ³ Now then, what have you at hand? Give me five loaves of bread, or whatever is here.” ⁴ And the priest answered David, “I have no common bread at hand, but there is holy bread; if only the young men have kept themselves from women.” ⁵ And David answered the priest, “Of a truth women have been kept from us as always when I go on an expedition; the vessels of the young men are holy, even when it is a common journey; how much more today will their vessels be holy?” ⁶ So the priest gave him the holy bread; for there was no bread there but the bread of the Presence, which is removed from before the Lord, to be replaced by hot bread on the day it is taken away.

⁷ Now a certain man of the servants of Saul was there that day, detained before the Lord; his name was Do′eg the E′domite, the chief of Saul’s herdsmen.