Now David came to Nob, to Ahimelech the priest. And Ahimelech was afraid when he met David, and said to him, "Why [are] you alone, and no one is with you?"
So David said to Ahimelech the priest, "The king has ordered me on some business, and said to me, 'Do not let anyone know anything about the business on which I send you, or what I have commanded you.' And I have directed [my] young men to such and such a place.
And the priest answered David and said, "[There is] no common bread on hand; but there is holy bread, if the young men have at least kept themselves from women."
Then David answered the priest, and said to him, "Truly, women [have been] kept from us about three days since I came out. And the vessels of the young men are holy, and [the bread is] in effect common, even though it was sanctified in the vessel this day."
So the priest gave him holy [bread;] for there was no bread there but the showbread which had been taken from before the LORD, in order to put hot bread [in its place] on the day when it was taken away.
Now a certain man of the servants of Saul [was] there that day, detained before the LORD. And his name [was] Doeg, an Edomite, the chief of the herdsmen who [belonged] to Saul.
And David said to Ahimelech, "Is there not here on hand a spear or a sword? For I have brought neither my sword nor my weapons with me, because the king's business required haste."
So the priest said, "The sword of Goliath the Philistine, whom you killed in the Valley of Elah, there it is, wrapped in a cloth behind the ephod. If you will take that, take [it.] For [there is] no other except that one here." And David said, "[There is] none like it; give it to me."
And the servants of Achish said to him, "[Is] this not David the king of the land? Did they not sing of him to one another in dances, saying: 'Saul has slain his thousands, And David his ten thousands'?"