And [David] arose and went. And Jonathan went into the city.

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

And David said to Ahimelech the priest, “The king has charged me with a matter and said to me, ‘Let no man know anything of the matter about which I send you and with which I have charged you.’ So I have sent ahead the young men to a hidden and concealed place.

Now then, what have you at hand? Give me five loaves of bread or whatever is found.”

And the priest answered David and said, “I have no profane bread at hand, but there is holy bread; if only the young men have kept themselves from the uncleanness of women.”

And David answered the priest and said to him, “In truth, women are removed from us as always before when I go out. The vessels of the young men are clean for holiness. And it is not going in a profane journey and today it is eaten and not becoming invalid by the vessel.”

So the priest gave him the holy [bread], for there was no common bread there, but only the bread of the Presence, which had been removed from before the LORD to be replaced by hot bread on the day it is taken away.

Now a certain man of the servants of Saul was there that day, gathering before the LORD. His name was Doeg the Edomite, the commander of Saul’s shepherds.

And David said to Ahimelech, “Would here be a spear of a sword at hand! For I have brought neither my sword nor my weapons with me, because the king’s business was in haste.”

And the priest said, “The sword of Goliath the Philistine, whom you killed in the Valley of the Terebinth, behold it is here wrapped in a cloak.” After he inquired of the ephod for him, “If you want to take that, take it, for there is none other than that here.” And David said, “There is none like that, give it to me.”

And David rose and fled that day from before Saul. He went to Achish the king of Gath.

And the servants of Achish said to him, “Is not this David, the king of the land? Did they not proclaim to him in dances, saying, ‘Saul has killed by the thousands, and David by the ten thousands’?”

And David took these words to heart and was much afraid of Achish the king of Gath.

So he changed his intelligence in their sight and feigned himself mad in their hands. He made marks on the doors of the gate and let his spittle run down his beard.

Then Achish said to his servants, “Behold, when you saw that he is a madman, why did you bring him to me?

Do I lack madmen, that you have brought this one to play the madman before me? Shall this one enter my house?”