1 Samuel 21-22

Amplified Bible, Classic Edition

21 Then David went to Nob, to Ahimelech the priest; and Ahimelech was afraid at meeting David, and said to him, Why are you alone and no man with you?

² David said to Ahimelech the priest, The king has charged me with a matter and has told me, Let no man know anything of the mission on which I send you and with what I have charged you. I have appointed the young men to a certain place.

³ Now what do you have on hand? Give me five loaves of bread, or whatever you may have.

⁴ And the priest answered David, There is no common bread on hand, but there is hallowed bread—if the young men have kept themselves at least from women.

⁵ And David told the priest, Truly women have been kept from us in these three days since I came out, and the food bags and utensils of the young men are clean, and although the bread will be used in a secular way, it will be set apart in the clean bags.

⁶ So the priest gave him holy bread, for there was no bread there but the showbread which was taken from before the Lord to put hot bread in its place the day when it was taken away.

⁷ Now a certain man of Saul’s servants was there that day, detained before the Lord; his name was Doeg the Edomite, the chief of Saul’s herdsmen.

⁸ David said to Ahimelech, Do you have at hand a sword or spear? The king’s business required haste, and I brought neither my sword nor my weapons with me.

⁹ The priest said, The sword of Goliath the Philistine, whom you slew in the Valley of Elah, see, it is here wrapped in a cloth behind the ephod; if you will take that, do so, for there is no other here. And David said, There is none like that; give it to me.

¹⁰ David arose and fled that day from Saul and went to Achish king of Gath.

¹¹ The servants of Achish said to him, Is not this David, the king of the land? Did they not sing one to another of him in their dances: Saul has slain his thousands, and David his ten thousands?

¹² David took these words to heart and was much afraid of Achish king of Gath.

¹³ And he changed his behavior before them, and pretended to be insane in their [Philistine] hands, and scribbled on the gate doors, and drooled on his beard.

¹⁴ Then said Achish to his servants, You see the man is mad. Why then have you brought him to me?

¹⁵ Have I need of madmen, that you bring this fellow to play the madman in my presence? Shall this fellow come into my house?

22 So David departed and escaped to the cave of Adullam: and when his brothers and all his father’s house heard it, they went down there to him.

² And everyone in distress or in debt or discontented gathered to him, and he became a commander over them. And there were with him about 400 men.

³ And David went from there to Mizpah of Moab; and he said to the king of Moab, Let my father [of Moabite descent] and my mother, I pray you, come out [of Judah] and be with you till I know what God will do for me.^(A)

⁴ And he brought them before the king of Moab, and they dwelt with him all the while that David was in the stronghold [in Moab].

⁵ Then the prophet Gad said to David, Do not remain in the stronghold; leave, and get into the land of Judah. So David left and went into the forest of Hareth.

⁶ Saul heard that David was discovered, and the men that were with him. Saul was sitting in Gibeah under the tamarisk tree on the height, his spear in his hand and all his servants standing about him.

⁷ Saul said to his servants who stood about him, Hear now, you Benjamites! Will the son of Jesse give every one of you fields and vineyards and make you all commanders of thousands and hundreds,

⁸ That all of you have conspired against me? No one discloses to me when my son makes a league with the son of Jesse. None of you is sorry for me or discloses that my son has stirred up my servant against me to lie in wait, as he does this day?

⁹ Then Doeg the Edomite, who stood with Saul’s servants, said, I saw the son of Jesse come to Nob, to Ahimelech son of Ahitub.

¹⁰ And [Ahimelech] inquired of the Lord for him, and gave him provisions and the sword of Goliath the Philistine.

¹¹ Then the king sent to call Ahimelech the priest, the son of Ahitub, and all his father’s house, the priests who were at Nob, and they all came to the king.

¹² Saul said, Hear now, you son of Ahitub. He replied, Here I am, my lord.

¹³ Saul said to him, Why have you conspired against me, you and the son of Jesse, giving him bread and a sword and inquiring of God for him, so he could rise against me to lie in wait, as he does this day?

¹⁴ Then Ahimelech answered the king, And who is so faithful among all your servants as David, who is the king’s son-in-law, and is taken into your council and honored in your house?

¹⁵ Have I only today begun inquiring of God for him? No! Let not the king impute any wrong to his servant or to all the house of my father, for your servant has known nothing of all this, little or much.

¹⁶ [Saul] said, You shall surely die, Ahimelech, you and all your father’s house.

¹⁷ And the king said to the guard that stood about him, Turn and slay the Lord’s priests, because their hand also is with David and because they knew that he fled and did not disclose it to me. But the servants of the king would not put forth their hands against the Lord’s priests.

¹⁸ The king said to Doeg, You turn and fall upon the priests. And Doeg the Edomite turned and attacked the priests and slew that day eighty-five persons who wore the priest’s linen ephod.

¹⁹ And Nob, the city of the priests, he smote with the sword; both men and women, children and sucklings, oxen and donkeys and sheep, he put to the sword.

²⁰ And one of the sons of Ahimelech son of Ahitub named Abiathar escaped and fled after David.

²¹ And Abiathar told David that Saul had slain the Lord’s priests.

²² David said to Abiathar, I knew that day, when Doeg the Edomite was there, that he would surely tell Saul. I have occasioned the death of all your father’s house.

²³ Stay with me, fear not; for he who seeks my life seeks your life. But with me you shall be safeguarded.