⁹ Then answered ^(A)Doeg the Edomite, who stood by the servants of Saul, “I saw the son of Jesse ^(B)coming to Nob, to ^(C)Ahimelech the son of Ahitub,

The Steadfast Love of God Endures

To the choirmaster. A Maskil^[a] of David, when ^(A)Doeg, the Edomite, came and told Saul, “David has come to the house of Ahimelech.”

⁵⁹ Now the chief priests and the whole council^{[a] (A)}were seeking false testimony against Jesus that they might put him to death, ⁶⁰ but they found none, ^(B)though many false witnesses came forward. At last ^(C)two came forward ⁶¹ and said, “This man said, ^(D)‘I am able to ^(E)destroy the temple of God, and to rebuild it in three days.’”

^9 (A)There are men in you who slander to shed blood, and people in you ^(B)who eat on the mountains; ^(C)they commit lewdness in your midst.

David and the Holy Bread

21 ^[a] Then David came to ^(A)Nob, to ^(B)Ahimelech the priest. And Ahimelech ^(C)came to meet David, trembling, and said to him, “Why are you alone, and no one with you?” ² And David said to Ahimelech 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 do you have on hand? Give me five loaves of bread, or whatever is here.” ⁴ And the priest answered David, “I have no common bread on hand, but there is ^(D)holy bread—^(E)if the young men have kept themselves from women.” ⁵ And David answered the priest, “Truly 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 an ordinary journey. How much more today will their vessels be holy?” ⁶ So the priest gave him ^(F)the holy bread, for there was no bread there but the bread of the Presence, ^(G)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 ^(H)Doeg the Edomite, the chief of Saul's herdsmen.

⁸ Then David said to Ahimelech, “Then have you not here a spear or a sword at hand? For I have brought neither my sword nor my weapons with me, because the king's business required haste.” ⁹ And the priest said, ^(I)“The sword of Goliath the Philistine, whom you struck down in ^(J)the Valley of Elah, behold, it is here wrapped in a cloth behind the ephod. If you will take that, take it, for there is none but that here.” And David said, “There is none like that; give it to me.”

David Flees to Gath

¹⁰ And David rose and fled that day from Saul and went to ^(K)Achish the king of Gath. ¹¹ And the servants of Achish said to him, “Is not this David the king of the land? ^(L)Did they not sing to one another of him in dances,

¹² And David ^(M)took these words to heart and was much afraid of Achish the king of Gath. ¹³ So he changed his behavior before them and pretended to be insane in their hands and made marks on the doors of the gate and let his spittle run down his beard. ¹⁴ Then Achish said to his servants, “Behold, you see the man is mad. Why then have you brought him to me? ¹⁵ Do I lack madmen, that you have brought this fellow to behave as a madman in my presence? Shall this fellow come into my house?”

³ including ^(A)Ahijah the son of Ahitub, ^(B)Ichabod's brother, son of Phinehas, son of Eli, the priest of the Lord ^(C)in Shiloh, ^(D)wearing an ephod. And the people did not know that Jonathan had gone.