1 Samuel 21:1-6

David Takes Consecrated Bread

¹Then 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?” ²David 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.’ ³Now then, what do you have on hand? Give me five loaves of bread, or whatever can be found.” ⁴The 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.” ⁵David 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?” ⁶So 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.