⁴ “We don’t have any regular bread,” the priest replied. “But there is the holy bread, which you can have if your young men have not slept with any women recently.”

³ Jesus said to them, “Haven’t you read in the Scriptures what David did when he and his companions were hungry? ⁴ He went into the house of God, and he and his companions broke the law by eating the sacred loaves of bread that only the priests are allowed to eat.

¹⁵ He told them, “Get ready for the third day, and until then abstain from having sexual intercourse.”

³⁰ Place the Bread of the Presence on the table to remain before me at all times.

⁵ Do not deprive each other of sexual relations, unless you both agree to refrain from sexual intimacy for a limited time so you can give yourselves more completely to prayer. Afterward, you should come together again so that Satan won’t be able to tempt you because of your lack of self-control.

³ They were to ask this question of the prophets and the priests at the Temple of the Lord of Heaven’s Armies: “Should we continue to mourn and fast each summer on the anniversary of the Temple’s destruction,^[a] as we have done for so many years?”

⁶ Since there was no other food available, the priest gave him the holy bread—the Bread of the Presence that was placed before the Lord in the Tabernacle. It had just been replaced that day with fresh bread.

⁵ “You must bake twelve flat loaves of bread from choice flour, using four quarts^[a] of flour for each loaf. ⁶ Place the bread before the Lord on the pure gold table, and arrange the loaves in two stacks, with six loaves in each stack. ⁷ Put some pure frankincense near each stack to serve as a representative offering, a special gift presented to the Lord. ⁸ Every Sabbath day this bread must be laid out before the Lord as a gift from the Israelites; it is an ongoing expression of the eternal covenant. ⁹ The loaves of bread will belong to Aaron and his descendants, who must eat them in a sacred place, for they are most holy. It is the permanent right of the priests to claim this portion of the special gifts presented to the Lord.”