Now this man would go up from his city yearly to worship and to sacrifice to the Lord of armies in Shiloh. And the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, were priests to the Lord there.

Then Hannah got up after eating and drinking in Shiloh. Now Eli the priest was sitting on the seat by the doorpost of the temple of the Lord.

Then Elkanah went to his home at Ramah. But the boy continued to attend to the service of the Lord before Eli the priest.

And this was the custom of the priests with the people: when anyone was offering a sacrifice, the priest’s servant would come while the meat was cooking, with a three-pronged fork in his hand.

And he would thrust it into the pan, or kettle, or caldron, or pot; everything that the fork brought up, the priest would take for himself. They did so in Shiloh to all the Israelites who came there.

Also, before they burned the fat, the priest’s servant would come and say to the man who was sacrificing, “Give the priest meat for roasting, as he will not take cooked meat from you, only raw.”

Did I not choose them from all the tribes of Israel to be My priests, to go up to My altar, to burn incense, to carry an ephod before Me? And did I not give to the house of your father all the fire offerings of the sons of Israel?

But I will raise up for Myself a faithful priest who will do according to what is in My heart and My soul; and I will build him an enduring house, and he will walk before My anointed always.

And everyone who is left in your house will come to bow down to him for a silver coin or a loaf of bread and say, “Please assign me to one of the priest’s offices so that I may eat a piece of bread.”’”

For that reason neither the priests of Dagon nor any who enter Dagon’s house step on the threshold of Dagon in Ashdod to this day.

And the Philistines called for the priests and the diviners, saying, “What are we to do with the ark of the Lord? Tell us how we may send it to its place.”

and Ahijah, the son of Ahitub, Ichabod’s brother, the son of Phinehas, the son of Eli, the priest of the Lord at Shiloh, was wearing an ephod. And the people did not know that Jonathan had gone.

While Saul talked to the priest, the commotion in the camp of the Philistines continued and increased; so Saul said to the priest, “Withdraw your hand.”

Then Saul said, “Let’s go down after the Philistines by night and take plunder among them until the morning light, and let’s not leave a man among them alive.” And they said, “Do whatever seems good to you.” So the priest said, “Let’s approach God here.”

David Takes Consecrated Bread

Then David came to Nob, to Ahimelech the priest; and Ahimelech came trembling to meet David and said to him, “Why are you alone, and no one with you?”

David said to Ahimelech the priest, “The king has commissioned me with a matter and has said to me, ‘No one is to know anything about the matter on which I am sending you and with which I have commissioned you; and I have directed the young men to a certain place.’

The priest answered David and said, “There is no ordinary bread on hand, but there is consecrated bread, if only the young men have kept themselves from women.”

David answered the priest and said to him, “Be assured, women have been denied to us as previously when I left and the bodies of the young men were consecrated, though it was an ordinary journey; how much more then will their bodies be consecrated today?”

So the priest gave him consecrated bread; for there was no bread there except the bread of the Presence which was removed from its place before the Lord, in order to put hot bread in its place on the day it was taken away.

Then the priest said, “The sword of Goliath the Philistine, whom you killed in the Valley of Elah, behold, it is wrapped in a cloth behind the ephod; if you would take it for yourself, take it. For there is no other except it here.” And David said, “There is none like it; give it to me.”

Priests Killed at Nob

So David departed from there and escaped to the cave of Adullam; and when his brothers and all his father’s household heard about it, they went down there to him.

Then the king sent a messenger to summon Ahimelech the priest, the son of Ahitub, and all his father’s household, the priests who were in Nob; and all of them came to the king.

And the king said to the guards who were attending him, “Turn around and put the priests of the Lord to death, because their hand also is with David and because they knew that he was fleeing and did not inform me.” But the servants of the king were unwilling to reach out with their hands to attack the priests of the Lord.

Then the king said to Doeg, “You, turn around and attack the priests!” And Doeg the Edomite turned around and attacked the priests, and he killed on that day eighty-five men who wore the linen ephod.

He also struck Nob the city of the priests with the edge of the sword, both men and women, children and infants; he also struck oxen, donkeys, and sheep with the edge of the sword.