² David answered Ahimelek the priest, “The king sent me on a mission and said to me, ‘No one is to know anything about the mission I am sending you on.’ As for my men, I have told them to meet me at a certain place. ³ Now then, what do you have on hand? Give me five loaves of bread, or whatever you can find.”

⁴ But the priest answered David, “I don’t have any ordinary bread^(A) on hand; however, there is some consecrated^(B) bread here—provided the men have kept^(C) themselves from women.”

⁵ David replied, “Indeed women have been kept from us, as usual^(D) whenever^[a] I set out. The men’s bodies are holy^(E) even on missions that are not holy. How much more so today!” ⁶ So the priest gave him the consecrated bread,^(F) since there was no bread there except the bread of the Presence that had been removed from before the Lord and replaced by hot bread on the day it was taken away.