²⁶ how he went into the house of God in the days of Abiathar the high priest, and ate the showbread, ^(A)which is not lawful to eat except for the priests, and also gave some to those who were with him?”

^17 (A)Zadok the son of Ahitub and Ahimelech the son of Abiathar were the priests; ^[a]Seraiah was the ^[b]scribe;

⁶ And the scribe, Shemaiah the son of Nethanel, one of the Levites, wrote them down before the king, the leaders, Zadok the priest, Ahimelech the son of Abiathar, and the heads of the fathers’ houses of the priests and Levites, one father’s house taken for Eleazar and one for Ithamar.

David and the Holy Bread

21 Now David came to Nob, to Ahimelech the priest. And ^(A)Ahimelech was ^(B)afraid when he met David, and said to him, “Why are you alone, and no one is with you?”

The Bread of the Tabernacle

⁵ “And you shall take fine flour and bake twelve ^(A)cakes with it. Two-tenths of an ephah shall be in each cake. ⁶ You shall set them in two rows, six in a row, ^(B)on the pure gold table before the Lord. ⁷ And you shall put pure frankincense on each row, that it may be on the bread for a ^(C)memorial, an offering made by fire to the Lord. ^8 (D)Every Sabbath he shall set it in order before the Lord continually, being taken from the children of Israel by an everlasting covenant. ⁹ And ^(E)it shall be for Aaron and his sons, ^(F)and they shall eat it in a holy place; for it is most holy to him from the offerings of the Lord made by fire, by a perpetual statute.”

Abiathar Exiled, Joab Executed

²⁶ And to Abiathar the priest the king said, “Go to ^(A)Anathoth, to your own fields, for ^[a]you are deserving of death; but I will not put you to death at this time, ^(B)because you carried the ark of the Lord God before my father David, and because you were afflicted every time my father was afflicted.” ²⁷ So Solomon removed Abiathar from being priest to the Lord, that he might ^(C)fulfill the word of the Lord which He spoke concerning the house of Eli at Shiloh.

^20 (A)Now one of the sons of Ahimelech the son of Ahitub, named Abiathar, ^(B)escaped and fled after David. ²¹ And Abiathar told David that Saul had killed the Lord’s priests. ²² So David said to Abiathar, “I knew that day, when Doeg the Edomite was there, that he would surely tell Saul. I have caused the death of all the persons of your father’s ^[a]house.

^4 (A)Benaiah the son of Jehoiada, over the army; Zadok and ^(B)Abiathar, the priests;

²² And King Solomon answered and said to his mother, “Now why do you ask Abishag the Shunammite for Adonijah? Ask for him the kingdom also—for he is my ^(A)older brother—for him, and for ^(B)Abiathar the priest, and for Joab the son of Zeruiah.”