David answered Ahimelech the priest, "The king charged me with a certain matter and said to me,`No-one is to know anything about your mission and your instructions.' As for my men, I have told them to meet me at a certain place.
But the priest answered David, "I don't have any ordinary bread to hand; however, there is some consecrated bread here-- provided the men have kept themselves from women."
David replied, "Indeed women have been kept from us, as usual whenever I set out. The men's things are holy even on missions that are not holy. How much more so today!"
So the priest gave him the consecrated bread, since there was no bread there except the bread of the Presence that had been removed from before the LORD and replaced by hot bread on the day it was taken away.
The priest replied, "The sword of Goliath the Philistine, whom you killed in the Valley of Elah, is here; it is wrapped in a cloth behind the ephod. If you want it, take it; there is no sword here but that one." David said, "There is none like it; give it to me."
But the servants of Achish said to him, "Isn't this David, the king of the land? Isn't he the one they sing about in their dances: "`Saul has slain his thousands, and David his tens of thousands'?"
So he feigned insanity in their presence; and while he was in their hands he acted like a madman, making marks on the doors of the gate and letting saliva run down his beard.