²⁵ And he said to them, “Have you never read what David did when he and his companions were hungry and in need of food, ²⁶ how he entered the house of God when Abiathar was high priest and ate the bread of the Presence, which it is not lawful for any but the priests to eat, and he gave some to his companions?”^(A)

David and the Holy Bread

21 ^[a]David came to Nob to the priest Ahimelech. Ahimelech came trembling to meet David and said to him, “Why are you alone and no one with you?”^{(A) 2} David said to the priest Ahimelech, “The king has charged me with a matter and said to me, ‘No one must know anything of the matter about which I send you and with which I have charged you.’ I have made an appointment^[b] 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 The priest answered David, “I have no ordinary bread at hand, only holy bread—provided that the young men have kept themselves from women.”^{(B) 5} David answered the priest, “Indeed, 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?”^{(C) 6} So the priest gave him the holy bread, for there was no bread there except 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.^(D)

The Bread for the Tabernacle

⁵ “You shall take choice flour and bake twelve loaves of it; two-tenths of an ephah shall be in each loaf.^{(A) 6} You shall place them in two rows, six in a row, on the table of pure gold before the Lord.^{[a](B) 7} You shall put pure frankincense with each row, to be a token offering for the bread, as an offering by fire^[b] to the Lord. ⁸ Every Sabbath day Aaron shall set them in order before the Lord regularly as a commitment of the Israelites, as a covenant forever.^{(C) 9} They shall be for Aaron and his descendants, who shall eat them in a holy place, for they are most holy portions for him from the offerings by fire^[c] to the Lord, a perpetual due.”^(D)

³³ three cups shaped like almond blossoms, each with calyx and petals, on one branch, and three cups shaped like almond blossoms, each with calyx and petals, on the other branch—so for the six branches going out of the lampstand.