1David came to Nob, to Ahimelech the priest. Ahimelech trembled when he met David and said to him, "Why have you come alone, and no man is with you?"2David said to Ahimelech the priest, "The king commanded me a word and said to me, 'Let no man know anything of the word on which I am sending you and which I have commanded you.' I have directed the young men to a certain place."3Now then, what do you have under your hand? Give me five loaves of bread, or whatever is found.4The priest answered David and said, "There is no common bread at my hand, only holy bread, if the young men have kept themselves from a woman."5David answered the priest and said to him, "Indeed, women have been kept from us as on previous occasions when I set out; the young men's vessels are holy, even on a common journey, and all the more today their vessels will be holy."6So the priest gave him holy bread, because no bread was there except the bread of the Presence, which is removed from before the LORD, in order to set hot bread in its place on the day it is taken away.7Now a certain man of Saul's servants was there that day, detained before the LORD; his name was Doeg the Edomite, mighty one of the shepherds who belong to Saul.8David said to Ahimelech, "Is there not a spear or sword here under your hand? For I brought neither my sword nor my equipment with me, because the king's word was urgent."9The priest replied, "The sword of Goliath the Philistine, whom you struck down in the valley of Elah—behold, it is wrapped in the mantle behind the ephod. If you wish to take it, take it, for there is nothing else here besides it." David said, "There is none like it; give it to me."