1Then David went to Nob to Ahimelech the priest. Ahimelech came out trembling to meet David and asked him, "Why are you alone, with no one with you?"
2David told Ahimelech the priest, "The king has given me a secret mission and told me, 'Don't let anyone know anything about the business I'm sending you on or what I've ordered you to do.' I've sent the young men to a specific place.
3So now, what do you have on hand? Please give me five loaves of bread, or anything else you have."
4The priest answered David, "I don't have any regular bread, but I do have holy bread—if the young men have kept themselves away from women."
5David replied to the priest, "Indeed, we have been kept away from women as usual for the past three days. When I set out, the young men's belongings were ritually clean, even though it was just a common journey. How much more so today will their belongings be clean?"
6So the priest gave him holy bread, because there was no other bread there except the Bread of the Presence, which had been removed from before Yahweh to make room for fresh, hot bread.
7Now one of Saul's servants was there that day, held back before Yahweh. His name was Doeg the Edomite, and he was the chief of Saul's herdsmen.
8David asked Ahimelech, “Don’t you have a spear or a sword here? I didn’t bring my own sword or any weapons with me, because the king’s mission was urgent.”
9The priest replied, “The sword of Goliath the Philistine, whom you killed in the Valley of Elah, is here. It’s wrapped in a cloth behind the ephod. If you want to take it, go ahead, for there is no other weapon here.” David said, “There’s no sword like that one! Give it to me.”
10David got up and fled that day from Saul, going to Achish, the king of Gath.
11Achish's servants asked him, “Isn’t this David, the king of the land? Isn’t he the one they sing about when they dance, saying, ‘Saul has killed thousands, but David has killed tens of thousands’?”
12David took these words to heart and was very afraid of Achish, the king of Gath.
13So he changed his behavior in front of them, acting like a madman in their presence. He drew on the doors of the gate and let his saliva run down his beard.
14Then Achish said to his servants, “Look, you can see the man is insane. Why did you bring him to me?
15Do I not have enough madmen that you bring this one to act crazy in my house? Should this man come into my house?”